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34 killed last week in western Rwanda: radio

KIGALI: Thirty-four people were killed last week in a clash between army soldiers and "infiltrators from Zaire" in western Rwanda, a radio report said Monday.

The radio gave no details on the identity of the victims.

However, the Democratic Resistance Force (DRF) of former prime minister Faustin Twagiramungu denounced what it called a "massacre" of mainly women and children and blamed the mainly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) for the killings.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, the DRF, Rwanda's newest political party made up of moderate Hutus, said the incident occurred overnight Friday in the town of Rutsiro near Lake Kivu on the border with Zaire.

Refugee camps in eastern Zaire shelter nearly one million Hutu refugees who fled the rampant bloodletting in Rwanda in 1994 that ended with the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

Many former soldiers of the Rwandan army and Hutu militiamen are thought to be among the refugees and blamed for frequent incursions into Rwanda from Zaire.

Twagiramungu and former interior minister Seth Sendashonga, both Hutu moderates, formed the DRF last month. Both were ousted from the RPF government in August 1995 after denouncing alleged atrocities by the RPA.-APP