43 Killed in Burundian Army Attack

Burundian soldiers killed at least 43 people, including children, in a New Year’s Eve massacre, a human rights group said Friday.

Some of the dead in the area south of Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura, were slain with knives and bayonets, the London-based group Amnesty International said in a statement.

In its second report in as many months critical of the Burundian military, the group said a total of 43 bodies had been found in three locations. It said the killings occurred in the Kabezi commune in Bujumbura Rural province.

“The government of Burundi must publicly acknowledge the killings and ensure that an immediate independent and impartial investigation is carried out,” the statement said. “Those responsible must be brought to justice.”

Lt. Col. Longin Minani, a Burundian army spokesman, did not respond Friday to requests seeking comment.

Amnesty International said the latest massacre appeared to be a reprisal for a Dec. 28 rebel ambush near Kabezi in which two soldiers were killed.

The area recently has been the site of frequent attacks by government troops and rebel National Liberation Forces.

In November, Amnesty International warned that the Central African nation was on the verge of a humanitarian crisis and condemned the army for herding hundreds of thousands of Burundians into relocation camps in an attempt to deter escalating rebel attacks.

At least 200,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in Burundi since Tutsi paratroopers kidnapped and killed the country’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu, in October 1993.

The majority of Burundi’s 6.5 million inhabitants are Hutus, but Tutsis have run the country for all but four months since its independence from Belgium in 1962.

In addition to urging accountability for those soldiers responsible for the weekend massacre, Friday’s statement by Amnesty International urged Burundi’s armed opposition groups to refrain from attacking civilians.

In December, 17,215 Burundians fled into Tanzania to escape the violence, up from 9,568 in November, Vincent Kwesi Parker, a spokesman for the U.N. refugee agency, said Friday in the Tanzanian seaport town of Dar es Salaam.