Suspected militants killed at least 37 people and abducted six others in an attack on a school in western Uganda, authorities said Saturday. The raid in Mpondwe near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo took place late Friday, according to Defense Ministry spokesman Felix Kulayige, who said five rebels set fire to the school’s campus and looted its food stocks.

According to Kulayige, the suspected attackers were rebels from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an extremist group that has ties to the Islamic State and operates in Uganda and across the border in Congo. He said Ugandan forces were “pursuing the enemy to rescue those abducted and destroy” the group.

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