The United Nations Security Council will hold closed consultations late on Sunday to discuss the situation in Burundi following a massacre at a refugee camp in the northwestern part of the country.  

The council intends to issue a presidential statement after the informal consultations that will take place at 2100 GMT, the UN spokesman's office said in an e-mail to the UN press corps.

Figures from the UN peacekeeping mission in Burundi showed that at least 150 Tutsi Congolese refugees were killed Friday night in the attack on the Gatumba refugee camp bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

In a statement issued on Saturday, the mission said about 100 more refugees were wounded, most of them seriously, by bullets and grenades.

It added that most of the victims were women, children and babies who were shot dead and burnt in their shelters.

The mission condemned the massacre and warned that the perpetrators would answer for their acts against humanity.

The Forces for National Liberation (FNL), Burundi's rebel group formed by ethnic Hutus, has claimed the responsibility for the attack, saying it was a reprisal for military operations by the Burundi government.

The FNL is the sole rebel group that has refused to join the eastern African nation's peace process.

(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2004)