Rwanda calls for Hutu disarmament

The refugees were escaping violence in the DR Congo

Rwanda has pleaded for international co-operation to disarm Hutu rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo after a massacre of Congolese Tutsi refugees.

At least 156 people - mainly women and children - were killed in Friday night's raid on a camp in Burundi.

A Burundian Hutu rebel group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

But Rwanda believes Hutu rebels in the DRC also took part and is threatening to take unilateral action against them, if they are not disarmed.

The Hutu rebels in the DRC include some members of the former Rwandan army and Interahamwe militias, who were involved in the slaughter of Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Restraint pledge

The Gatumba camp, near the border with DR Congo, provides shelter for 1,700 refugees who fled the DRC in June.

Men armed with machetes and guns attacked the camp, torching houses and leaving the scene littered with bodies.

Rwanda's Foreign Minister Charles Murigande told the BBC he believed Rwandan Hutu rebels based in eastern Congo acted together with a Congolese militia group and a the Burundian Forces for National Liberation, or FNL, which admitted carrying out the massacre.

In pictures: Tutsi massacre Q&A: DR Congo conflict

Mr Murigande asked the Congolese government and the international community to disarm them.

If they failed to act, Rwanda would respond itself, including, if necessary, by fighting the Hutu rebels inside Congo, the minister said.

Mr Murigande said that, for the time being, his government would exercise restraint.

Rwanda invaded Congo in 1996 and 1998 using as justification the presence of thousands of Hutu rebels there, though it has often been accused of using this as a pretext for illegally exploiting Congo's vast mineral wealth, says the BBC's Robert Walker in Kigali.

The attack on the Tutsi refugees in Burundi comes at a time of heightened tension between Rwanda and Congo, our correspondent says.

In June the Congolese government accused Rwanda of supporting an insurgency by renegade soldiers in the east of the country, a claim Rwanda denied.

Friday night's attack followed a two-day visit by one of the DR Congo's four vice-presidents, himself a member of the Tutsi community, to Burundi to speed up the process of repatriating the estimated 20,000 Congolese refugees.

Burundi - like neighbouring Rwanda - has seen years of conflict between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority, with large numbers of each community crossing into neighbouring countries to escape ethnic violence.