UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned Friday night's massacre at a refugee camp in Burundi and called for prompt investigation into it so as to bring the assailants to justice, a UN spokesman said on Monday.

Burundi's Hutu rebel group, the Forces for National Liberation (FNL), has claimed the responsibility for the attack, during which more than 160 innocent Congolese civilians, mostly women and children, were brutally murdered, and over 100 others injured.

Annan "is shocked and outraged" by the massacre in the Gatumba refugee camp, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which, at the time of attack, was sheltering 1,700 Congolese Tutusis who had fled fighting in the eastern DRC, spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters.

"The secretary-general strongly condemns this massacre and stresses that it must be promptly investigated, so that those responsible are identified, apprehended and brought to justice," he said.

Annan urged the governments of the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda to exercise restraint and to take the steps necessary to prevent a further deterioration of the situation in the region.

The UN chief called on the DRC and Rwanda to urgently establish a joint verification mechanism, with the participation of Uganda and Burundi, which will assist in curbing the actions of armed groups operating in the border areas.

"The secretary-general offers all support to these governments to help them to restore peace and stability and to put an end to the tensions that have caused so much suffering to innocent people in the region," Eckhard said.

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2004)