Burundi Observes Day of Mourning for 320 Slain in Refugee Camp

This nation observed an official day of mourning Monday after Hutu rebels slaughtered an estimated 320 people, mostly women and children, at a camp for Tutsis displaced in the three-year civil war.

Stunned survivors searched the ruins for the charred remains of those massacred Saturday. Funeral services were planned for today.

Witnesses said more than 1,000 Hutus--armed with guns, machetes, spears and clubs--attacked the camp from several directions at daybreak and went on a killing rampage, throwing incendiary grenades into buildings and hunting down screaming women and children.

A dozen soldiers assigned to protect the camp, about 45 miles northeast of the capital, Bujumbura, were quickly defeated.

“The rebels started to kill the children, and then they asked the women for money,” said Joseph Ndayisenya, 44, one of the few men among the camp’s 1,850 people. “After they received some money, the attackers told the women it was their turn to die.”

Other survivors said the assailants identified themselves as supporters of the main Hutu rebel group that has waged war on Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Burundi.

At the United Nations on Monday, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali strongly condemned the killings and urged authorities there to launch a proper investigation.

President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, an ethnic Hutu, condemned the massacre in a national radio address Sunday night and called on people to respect the country’s legitimate state organizations, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.

“Those who perpetrate the massacres claim they are fighting for the restoration of democracy or rehabilitation of the Hutu ethnic group,” the BBC quoted Ntibantunganya as saying.

“But who can support the idea that the elderly people, women and children targeted by the criminals constitute the real obstacle to democracy and rehabilitation of all the components of the Burundian nation without discrimination?”