BUJUMBURA - Fortytwo men and women were killed in a church south of Burundi's capital, state radio said yesterday. The 42 were said in the obituaries section of a radio broadcast to have been Pentecostalists killed on May 14th in a church in Muhuta commune, 27 km south of Bujumbura.
Army spokesman LieuCol Isaie Nibizi said he had no information on the reported killings. Most of the dead were members of Burundi's Hutu majority. More than 150,000 people have been killed in massacres and civil war between the Tutsi dominated army and Hutu rebels since Burundi's first elected Hutu president was assassinated by troops in 1993.
Earlier yesterday military sources in the northwestern province of Cibitoke said the army had killed 30 Hutu rebels and captured 15 following a clash with rebels, former Rwandan and Zairean soldiers and Rwandan Hutu militiamen last week. They added that fighting continued in Mabayi, Mogina and Mogwi communes, northwest of Bujumbura.