Pope offers prayers for Tutsis massacred in Burundian refugee camp

Published: 2004-08-16

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope John Paul II offered prayers for some 160 ethnic Tutsis massacred in a Burundian refugee camp and asked his ambassador to Burundi to convey his condolences to their families and to the more than 100 people injured. Archbishop Paul Gallagher, papal nuncio to Burundi, told Catholic News Service that the scene at the Gatumba refugee camp was "quite horrific." "It is a very large field with groups of very simple tents erected by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. About half the tents are burned completely or partially," he said Aug. 16 in a telephone interview as he prepared to return to Gatumba for an ecumenical funeral service. A Burundian Hutu rebel group, the Forces for National Liberation, took responsibility for the Aug. 13 raid on the camp, claiming there were Tutsi rebels hiding there. The Hutu rebels, apparently assisted by Hutus from Congo and Rwanda, entered the camp late at night, burned the tents while people were sleeping, shot some of the victims and hacked others to death.

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