UNITED NATIONS (AP) – U.N. investigators have linked the recent massacre at a Burundi refugee camp on Hutu rebels operating with armed groups from Rwanda and Congo, according to a preliminary U.N. report.

Assistant Secretary-General Hedi Annabi briefed the Security Council at a closed-door meeting Friday on the initial results of an investigation by the U.N. missions in Burundi and Congo and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“It seems that several groups involving people from several countries in the region may have had a part in the events,” said Spain’s U.N. Ambassador Juan Antonio Yanez-Barnuevo, the current council president.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan recently cited reports that the Burundian rebel National Liberation Force, which has claimed responsibility for the massacre, operated in alliance with Congolese tribal fighters known as Mai Mai, and Rwandan Hutu rebels from the ex-FAR, or members of the former Rwandan military, and Interahamwe militias who fled to Congo after playing a central role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

“All the indications continue to be in that direction,” Yanez-Barnuevo said, when asked whether the preliminary finding agreed with Annan’s initial reports.

Annabi told council members that information from a captured soldier from the National Liberation Force, known as the FNL, indicated there were 90 commandos, not 600 as Burundi claimed, and that 30 were FNL members, U.N. diplomats said.

There were unconfirmed reports from survivors that some refugees in the camp returned fire against the attackers. Survivors also said the attackers spoke several languages, a strong indication of outside participation, the council diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In his report to the Security Council late last month, Annan expressed horror at the massacre and urged the governments of Rwanda, Burundi and Congo to end “the scourge of ethnic-based hostilities and abuse” afflicting the region.

He said the governments of Burundi and Congo, as well as the international community, must ensure that those responsible for killing 163 refugees at the Gatumba camp, near the Congolese border, are held accountable. Victims of the massacre were Congolese Tutsis who had sought refuge in Burundi.

Council diplomats said the United Nations is conducting a further investigation to find answers to specific questions about the planning of the massacre, which is believed to have been meticulous, and the links outside Burundi.

Burundi’s U.N. Ambassador Marc Nteturuye said his government is convinced “that the perpetrators of the massacre were a coalition of negative forces … which had worked closely with FNL.” He cited the Mai-Mai and the ex-Far and Interahamwe and said the attackers crossed the border from Congo – and returned to Congo after the massacre.

“There is no question about it,” Nteturuye said.

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