BURUNDI'S Tutsi dominated army changed tack yesterday about a massacre last month in which 235 Hutu civilians were killed and blamed Hutu rebels.
"Despite what we said earlier, it now seems that there was an incident at Buhoro," the Defence Ministry spokesman, Lieut Col Isaie Nibizi, said.
"Following a conflict between the military and the [Hutu] rebels, the rebels continued to use the local civilian population as a shield and it was then that this event occurred," he said.
He did not say whether soldiers killed the civilians. Earlier yesterday he denied that any incident occurred at Buhoro on April 26th. Humanitarian sources gave a detailed report of the butchery, mostly of women and children, and blamed soldiers.
Speaking by telephone, Lieut Col Nibizi said later he did not know how many people were killed but expected the figures would be available following the return later of a UN human rights team sent to the area after news of the massacre was published.
Meanwhile, United Nations officials kept silent on the worst reported massacre this year. The UN special representative in Burundi, Mr Marc Faguy, refused to discuss the report with journalists.
Earlier, Lieut Col Nibizi told foreign correspondents "How could this have happened? You can hide one or two people but not 200 plus. There would have to be a grave somewhere."
Humanitarian sources said on Sunday that 136 women, 87 children and 12 men were killed by men of Burundi's overwhelmingly Tutsi army in apparent reprisal for a raid by Hutu rebels.
Only 11 of the dead were killed by gunshots. The rest were butchered by bayonets, knives and machetes, the sources said.
Mr Maroufa Diabira, head of the UN Centre for Human Rights in Bujumbura, said that three human rights monitors had been sent to investigate. They left early yesterday for Mutoyi township close to Buhoro, he said.
On Friday Mr Diabira told reporters that "important meetings and security considerations" had prevented the human rights team from visiting the scene.
"We don't want investigation of one massacre to stop us from being able to investigate others," he said at the time.
The humanitarian sources, fearing for their own safety and that of survivors, refused to be quoted by name or organisation by journalists who visited Buhoro during the weekend.
Tribal hatred between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority has repeatedly exploded in Burundi since independence from Belgium in 1962.