Burundi To Investigate Reports Of Massacres But U.N. Worries Unverified Tales Could Spark Violence

The government said Wednesday it would investigate reports of ethnic massacres in northeastern Burundi, where the U.S. ambassador said up to 450 people have been slaughtered in the past two weeks.

The U.N. special representative to Burundi said the death toll still needed to be verified and warned that unsubstantiated reports could aggravate ethnic hatred and push the country into genocide.

U.S. Ambassador Robert Krueger said Monday that more than 150 people were massacred in the northeast village of Gasorwe in three days of attacks that began March 29.

He said up to 450 people have been killed the past two weeks in the region.

“I know the figures to be accurate,” Krueger said Wednesday. “Indeed, today some of the figures were confirmed by a high-level church official.”

Krueger gave The Associated Press photographs of about 10 people killed near Gasorwe. They showed grotesquely gashed corpses, including two children reportedly killed with bayonets. One victim’s face was partially shot away.

U.N. special representative Ahmadou Ould Abdallah said he believed reports of violence in the Gasorwe area to be genuine, but he cautioned that death tolls there and elsewhere in the northeast hadn’t been confirmed.

“We are pushing this country towards genocide. By we, I mean the international community, including the U.N.,” Abdallah said. “In this fragile country, we are traumatizing public opinion by giving them figures that are not checked.