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GATUMBA, Burundi - Survivors of a massacre at a U.N.-run refugee camp buried 163 Congolese Tutsis in a dusty cotton field Monday, wailing in anguish over the latest spasm in ethnic conflicts that have killed millions over the past decade in central Africa.
Burundi's government sealed the border with Congo, and more troops were being moved in to head off further violence in the region, said a Burundian army spokesman, Col. Adolphe Manirakiza.
As simple wood coffins were lowered into a trench, survivors of Friday night's slaughter told of narrow escapes as Hutu marauders rampaged through the Gatumba camp screaming that they would kill any Tutsi they found.
''I did not dare to breathe heavily or even raise my head to see what was happening,'' said Domitien Ikora, who hid in a ditch during the three-hour assault.
He heard the attackers ''lobbing grenades, shooting, hacking and stabbing to death the children, women and others who were not quick enough to flee.''
The attackers beat drums and blew horns as they ''went into each hut to slaughter occupants and burned what they could not loot,'' said Ikora, who lost 14 family members.
Women wept and some people fainted in the hot sun as the rudimentary caskets were lowered into the mass grave.
Many people wrapped towels and shirts around their faces to stave off the stench from decomposing bodies.
Burundian army helicopters circled overhead, underlining fears of renewed conflict in the Great Lakes region that includes Burundi, Rwanda and eastern Congo.
Conflicts between Hutus, who comprise a majority in Burundi and Rwanda, and Tutsis, a minority in those two countries and the eastern Congo, have wracked this corner of Africa for more than a decade, spawning a civil war in Burundi, the 1994 Rwandan genocide and a five-year war in Congo.
The fighting in Congo mostly ended in 2003, but former rebels and government loyalists continue to clash in the east.
The massacre threatens to jeopardize efforts to restore peace in Congo, warned Congolese Vice President Azarias Ruberwa, a former rebel leader who attended the funeral along with Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye.
''This is a real genocide,'' said Ruberwa, who is a Tutsi. The victims ''were killed simply because of the fact that they were Congolese Tutsis.''
A Burundian Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces, said its fighters staged the attack, claiming Burundian soldiers and Congolese Tutsi militiamen were hiding at the camp.
Burundian officials and witnesses said the Burundian rebels were accompanied by Hutu extremists based in Congo.
''If these groups are not disarmed . . . the region will not be at peace,'' said Felix Nkundabagenzi of the Peace and Security Information and Research Group, a think tank in Brussels, Belgium.