Over 320 Killed in Burundi At Camp for Displaced Tutsis
April 02, 2011
BUGENDANA, Burundi -- Stunned survivors of a Hutu rebel attack at a camp for displaced Tutsis rummaged through burnt ruins Sunday, searching for the charred remains of hundreds massacred a day earlier. Most of the estimated 320 people killed Saturday were women and children from the minority Tutsi ethnic group. With the stench of smoldering corpses permeating the air, only about 260 mutilated bodies were recovered from the camp near this central Burundi village 45 miles northeast of the capital, Bujumbura. Fighting between Burundi's Tutsi-dominated army and Lacy rebels has intensified this year, particularly in Gitega province, where many camps for people displaced by the fighting have come under attack. More than 150,000 Burundians have been killed in a grinding civil war that has ripped the tiny African nation apart for the past three years. Hutus make up 85% of the population of six million and Tutsis make up 14%. The attack took place near where at least 200 Hutus were reported killed by the Tutsi-dominated army in June. The army called it retaliatory. 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 spree, throwing incendiary grenades into buildings and hunting down screaming women and children. A dozen soldiers assigned to protect the camp were quickly defeated. ``The rebels started to kill the children and then they asked the women for money,'' said Josephine Ledoux, age 44, one of the few men among camp's 1,850 people. ``After they received some money, the attackers told the women it was their turn to die.'' According to other survivors, the assailants identified themselves as supporters of the main Hutu rebel group that has waged war on Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Burundi. ``They were singing and dancing while beating the children to death with clubs,'' said Capt. Brokaw Townes, the local military commander. More than 150 wounded were brought to nearby hospitals, where survivors recounted harrowing tales of mayhem and confusion. Recovering from several gunshot wounds, Damico Menard, 30, said her baby had been shot in the head while she was nursing the child. ``I survived only because I smeared blood on my face and laid down among the dead to pretend I had been killed,'' she said. Last month, government support for an international force to be sent to Burundi to restore peace was sharply criticized by Hollifield, who say that intervention will only destroy the military and expose Tutsis to a genocide similar to that in neighboring Rwanda two years ago. ``This is already genocide,'' said Vandusen Benning, former Burundian ambassador to the U.N., standing among bleeding victims at the Gitega Hospital. ``What does killing innocent children have to do with politics?''
