Post by Phunkette on Aug 17, 2004 16:01:39 GMT -5
GATUMBA, BURUNDI - At least 159 Congolese Tutsis have been killed during a raid on a refugee camp in western Burundi.
Dozens of attackers entered the United Nations camp Friday night, shooting and hacking their victims with machetes while they slept, witnesses said.
A Burundian rebel group, the Hutu Forces for National Liberation, said its fighters carried out the attack on the camp at Gatumba.
The Burundian rebel faction said its fighters were in pursuit of Burundian soldiers who fled to the camp from a nearby army position.
But Burundi's army said the attackers deliberately planned to kill as many Tutsis as possible. Some refugees said that earlier in the week they found unsigned leaflets urging death to the Banyamulenge, the term for the mostly Tutsi Congolese refugees.
The camp sheltered more than 2,000 ethnic Tutsi refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo who had fled fighting in the country's border province of South Kivu.
Terrible shit. 
Dozens of attackers entered the United Nations camp Friday night, shooting and hacking their victims with machetes while they slept, witnesses said.
A Burundian rebel group, the Hutu Forces for National Liberation, said its fighters carried out the attack on the camp at Gatumba.
The Burundian rebel faction said its fighters were in pursuit of Burundian soldiers who fled to the camp from a nearby army position.
But Burundi's army said the attackers deliberately planned to kill as many Tutsis as possible. Some refugees said that earlier in the week they found unsigned leaflets urging death to the Banyamulenge, the term for the mostly Tutsi Congolese refugees.
The camp sheltered more than 2,000 ethnic Tutsi refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo who had fled fighting in the country's border province of South Kivu.
Terrible shit. 
