Site of Massacre of 300 in Burundi Sealed Off by Military

The army sealed off a military base and nearby village that were stormed by Hutu rebels, refusing Friday to allow outsiders access to the scene of an attack that killed as many as 300 people.

Up to 200 civilians died in the fighting at Gakumbu military camp and Rukaramu settlement, most of them women and children, said Jean-Luc Ndizeye, a Burundian diplomat based in London.

President Pierre Buyoya went to the site and spoke to survivors of Thursday’s attack by 1,000 Hutu rebels, Ndizeye said.

The Tutsi-dominated government said four Burundian soldiers and at least 100 rebels had been killed. The rest of the victims were villagers, Ndizeye said.

“They have been having a difficult time identifying the villagers from the attackers,” he said, although he was unable to explain why women and children might be confused with rebel fighters.

He said the area had been sealed off to make sure all the attackers were gone.

The United Nations on Friday denounced the attack.

On Thursday, Lt. Col. Mamert Sinarinzi told state-controlled Radio Burundi that hundreds of Hutu rebels had launched an attack on an army base near the international airport and that civilians had been killed.

It was still unclear how or why the civilians died. Normally after rebel attacks on civilians, the military escorts journalists from both the state and independent media to the scene.

In the past, Hutu rebels have killed Hutu civilians who they allege have failed to support them in their rebellion. Most of those attacks had specific targets. In this case, the civilians appeared to be in the path of the Hutu rebels’ retreat.

Burundi’s majority Hutus and its minority Tutsi-led military government have been locked in battle since the 1993 killing of Burundi’s first Hutu president by Tutsi paratroopers. More than 150,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since then.

Buyoya, a former president, seized power in a July 1996 coup, promising an end to the country’s ethnic strife. But the killings and army reprisals have continued.