The mass suicide by members of the Ugandan Christian sect, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, took a further macabre twist yesterday when a number of bodies were discovered buried under the toilets in Kanugu in southern Uganda.
The death toll rose to 330, although officials say this number is probably an underestimate. Some of the charred bodies from the blaze in the sect church were probably burned to ashes, officials said. Some 78 of the dead were children.
Five bodies were found buried in a pit underneath the toilets in the sect's residential quarters. The bodies have not been removed and appear to lie over many more, health officials said.
Prisoners from a local jail spent most of yesterday digging a deep trench behind the church at Kunungu. Later, a bulldozer pushed the ruins and the piles of charred remains of the sect's followers into a mass grave, following advice from health officials who feared an epidemic.
Visiting the scene the Ugandan Minister for Internal Affairs, Mr Edward Rugumayo, said he was "99 per cent certain" those who perished in last Friday night's inferno had committed suicide.
This would confirm the mass suicide as the second largest in living memory.
The largest was the death of 914 followers of a cult lead by a US pastor, Jim Jones, in Guyana in 1978.
However, regional police commander Stephen Okwalinga said he was treating the affair as a "murder/suicide". Many local people believe that while the leaders were aware of the suicide plan, many of the sect's followers were not.
The leader of the sect, Joseph Kibwetere (68) is also thought to have perished in the blaze. His son, Mr Maurice Rugambwa, said his father had predicted the mass suicide in a letter just days earlier, local papers reported.
A stream of local people and relatives of the dead visited the sect's compound yesterday. They clutched sprigs of rosemary to their noses as they silently filed past the horrific scene of piles of charred bodies inside the rough church building.
Mr Charles Agaba lost his mother and three of his children in the blaze. His mother was first converted and then she brought the three children, aged 11 to 14, to live with her on the compound in Kunungu.
"They tried to convince me to join as well. They said the world was going to end and we should be saved but I saw they were telling lies," he said.
The compound buildings, which followers believed was their Noah's Ark, were empty yesterday. A few garlands hung from the roof of a second church building, the only evidence of the huge party they held hours before dousing themselves in petrol and burning to death.
English phrases such as "She is laughing," "A boy is kicking a ball", and "She is touching a flower," hung on the wall in the deserted Primary 1 classroom.
But few of those simple pleasures were available to the sect members, according to the few remaining witnesses who had visited the compound.
Mr Emmanuel Besigye (38), a carpenter by trade, escaped from the sect because adherents were not allowed to speak and had to spend all their waking hours labouring or praying. Women and men were separated at night and sex was forbidden.
He said tensions emerged within the sect when the predicted end of the world failed to materialise on the eve of the millen. A three-month extension to March was announced by the leader.
The local Catholic priest, Father Christopher Busingye, visited the compound one week before the fire. The members were selling their property and all of their belongings.
"They told me it was to buy a new jeep and an electricity generator. I didn't suspect a thing," he said.
In Kunungu there is still much debate about whether the sect followers intended to commit suicide.
