The charred bodies of women and children lay heaped inside a dozen torched huts in the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi on Saturday, where nearly 159 people were killed in an overnight attack.
The victims were shot, hacked to death with machetes or burnt inside their homes, during a raid on the camp near the capital Bujumbura.
Inside a dozen burnt-out huts, the remains of scores of men, women and children lay heaped on the ground. Inside those huts that were still standing lay dozens more mutilated bodies, according to a reporter from the AFP news agency at the scene.
Survivors clung to each other, shocked and weeping, as the wounded were evacuated towards two hospitals in Bujumbura about 20km to the east.
A number of survivors spoke of ”genocide,” with the attackers singling out Tutsis and sparing others.
”They came last night at 10pm (10pm GMT) and for an hour and a half carried out a genocide, targeting huts to attack,” said an official at the camp, on condition of anonymity, whose testimony was corroborated by witnesses.
Burundi’s Hutu rebel National Liberation Forces immediately claimed responsibility for the raid, but President Domitien Ndayizeye insisted it had been carried out by foreign assailants.
On Saturday two men wearing protective masks and long gloves were trying to identify those killed and then load them into body bags under a tarpaulin provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
”Is it a woman?” asked Venant, a Congolese refugee, opening one of the white body bags.
”No, it looks like a man,” Vedaste, another Congolese, responded without being able to identify the body. They had both been in the camp when the assailants attacked.
Venant covered the face with a bloodied cloth and pulled up the zipper. Using a red marker, Vedaste wrote a question mark on the plastic bag.
The next bodies have been burnt beyond recognition. Vedaste added more question marks.
The overnight attack has been blamed by Burundi’s president on ”elements” from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. The camp lies just a few kilometres from the border with the DRC.
Ndayizeye travelled to the scene on Saturday accompanied by one of his vice-presidents, Alphonse-Marie Kadege.
”They came by night. It was about 10 o’clock; we are all in bed,” said 20-year-old survivor Janvier.
”There were a lot of them, really. We heard drums. They started shooting, some of them had knives,” he added. Some of them spoke Bafulero, a Congolese language, which was confirmed by several witnesses.
Others said the assailants also spoke Kinyarwanda, the language spoken in Rwanda.
Janvier said he managed to flee but that his mother was knifed and his sister shot in the back. Two of her children died after receiving gunshot wounds to their abdomen.
”They left her three-year-old baby alive,” he added.
UN officials in Burundi condemned the massacre as a ”monstrous” crime.
”We are shocked, I can only express my incomprehension at such barbarity,” said the deputy UN special envoy to Burundi, Noureldine Satti.
Isabelle Abric, a spokesperson for the UN mission in Burundi, said it was ”monstrous.
”Those who have attacked, killed, burned, women and children … there can’t be anything but outrage at this violence,” she said. – Sapa-AFP