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NAIROBI, Dec 14 (AFP) - Rwandan authorities have claimed that rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) are massing on its northern border with Uganda, state-run radio Rwanda reported in a broadcast monitored here on Saturday.
But the radio did not say exactly where the rebels were massing, whether they were planning a new attack on the tiny central Africal nation, or their numerical strength.
The massing of rebel forces on the Rwandan-Ugandan border followed an attack on Thursday by the RPF rebels in Kyombe district, some 25 kilometres (15 miles) southeast of the Ugandan town of Mbarara, the radio said, without giving further details.
Meanwhile, the rebels claimed in a statement released in Kampala on Saturday that their guerrillas had killed 51 Rwandan Government troops in two separate attacks last month at Kabuga and Bushara in northern Rwanda.
There was no immediate independent confirmation of the rebel claim, broadcast by state-run radio Uganda, monitored here on Saturday.
The rebels, mostly minority Tutsi refugees who have been living in Uganda for more than three decades since they fled ethnic fighting in Rwanda in the early 1960's, unsuccessfully invaded their country from Uganda on October 2 last year in an attempt to overthrow the majority Hutu regime in Kigali.
They have since been mounting guerrilla raids into Rwanda from their camps inside Uganda, prompting authorities in Kigali to accuse the Ugandan Government of complicity with the rebels, who before their unsuccessful invasion were serving in the Ugandan Army.
The Ugandan Government has strongly denied charges of aiding rebels.
str/lto/hn AFP AFP SEQN-0125
