KANUNGU, Uganda -- The death toll in an apparent mass murder- suicide in a church in a remote part of southwestern Uganda could top 470, police and other sources said Sunday.
"The scene is horror," police spokesman Asuman Mugenyi told The Associated Press after visiting the site. "It is only about two or three bodies which you can say that these are men or women. The rest of the bodies are beyond human shape."
He said the number of dead was likely to be double the 235 reported earlier..
Mugenyi said police were treating the incident as both suicide and murder because children were involved.
"Definitely it is both, because there were a big number of children who were led there by their parents," he said.

Death toll hard to pin down

Journalist Simwogerere Kyazze of The Sunday Monitor in Uganda quoted police as saying as many as 650 people may have died in the blaze.
Deputy police spokesman Eric Naigambi said it would take at least a week to determine an exact death count.
"We don't know who was inside or outside," he said. "Relatives of people said to have burned keep on telling us that their relatives are nowhere to be seen, and yet we have not proved their identities."
Naigambi added that the doors and windows of the church had been nailed shut.
Doctors started conducting autopsies on Sunday and forensic experts traveled to the scene from the Ugandan capital, Kampala, about 347 kilometers (217 miles) northeast.

Members partied, said farewell

The sect was called the "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God." Its leader, Joseph Kibweteere, preached that the world would end in 2000. To prepare for the end, the followers sold off their possessions, dressed up in white, green and black robes, and boarded themselves in their church.
Local residents told one paper the sect members had a party on Wednesday at which they consumed 70 crates of soda and three bulls. The next day, they gathered personal belongings including clothing, money, suitcases and church materials and burned them, the paper reported.
On Thursday, cult members went around nearby villages bidding farewell to neighbors, witnesses told the Sunday Vision newspaper.
"They were aware they would die on March 17 because the Virgin Mary had promised to appear at the camp during the morning hours to carry them to heaven," Anastasia Komuhanti told the paper.
The sect members gathered at the church on Friday morning and, after singing and chanting for several hours, set the building on fire, said police.
"People said they heard some screaming but it was all over very quickly," said Mugenyi.
Witnesses told the Monitor they smelled gasoline and heard an explosion that set the church on fire.
A local villager named Florence said sect members believed the church was the place they could go in time of calamity.
"They were told that at a certain time this year the world would end and so the leaders made it happen and perhaps the people there believed it had happened," she said.

Leader's fate unknown

It was unclear whether Kibweteere died in the fire.
Kibweteere originally had predicted the world would end December 31, 1999, but later changed the date to December 31, 2000, according to the Monitor.
The paper quoted Kanungu residents as saying Kibweteere started preaching in 1994 and was a former member of the Roman Catholic Church.
If the fire is determined to have been a mass suicide, it would be the second-largest in recent history. In 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana, 914 followers of the Rev. Jim Jones died by poisoning.

Sect members must register with government

Violent religious sects have caused trouble in Uganda in the past, prompting authorities last year to require sect members to register with the government.
Mugenyi said all 235 registered members of the sect had probably perished in the fire, as well as some unregistered new arrivals as well.
"I think it (the fire) calls on the state to review the issue of cults and see what measures to take to protect the ordinary people from cult leaders," Amama Mbabazi, minister of state for foreign affairs, told the government-owned Sunday Vision newspaper.
In September, police in central Uganda disbanded another doomsday cult, the 1,000-member "World Message Last Warning" sect. The leaders were charged with rape, kidnapping and illegal confinement.
An extreme and violent Christian cult, the Holy Spirit Movement, sprang up in poor areas of northern Uganda in the late 1980s. Several hundred followers of that group died in suicidal attacks against government troops, convinced that magic oil would protect them.
Its successor, the Lord's Resistance Army, is still pursuing a guerrilla war. It claims it wants to rule the country on the basis of the Biblical Ten Commandments, yet it has kidnapped thousands of boys and girls to serve as soldiers and sex slaves, and frequently commits atrocities against local people.
In recent years there have been several smaller group suicides in Europe and North America, three involving the Solar Temple, an international sect that believes death by ritual suicide leads to rebirth.

MORE than 400 people, including women and children, were feared dead last night after members of a doomsday cult set fire to themselves in a ritual mass suicide in a Ugandan church.
Witnesses said members of the group tipped paraffin and petrol over themselves after sealing the door and windows of the makeshift building with nails. They had first rubbed themselves with an ointment which may have been inflammable in the apparent belief that it would help them go to heaven.
Estimates of the number of dead varied widely. Police said they feared at least 250 people had died in the incident on Friday in the village of Kanungu, 200 miles southwest of Kampala, the capital. Steven Mujuni, a commander of the Kanungu local defence force, said the death toll could be as high as 650.
Journalists at the scene yesterday saw piles of bodies, charred beyond recognition. More than 24 hours after the fire, many were still smoldering. Pieces of broken rosaries, crucifixes and effigies lay scattered on the ground.
"I counted some 400 bodies until it became too hard to continue because of the relatives who started pouring in," said Richard Tusiime, one of the reporters. "In some sections of the church, the bodies were so compacted you would need to remove them one by one to count properly."
It was the worst mass suicide since more than 900 followers of the American pastor Jim Jones died in Jonestown, Guyana, in 1978 after he made them drink fruit juice laced with poison.
The Ugandan cult, known as the Members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, was headed by Joseph
Kibwetere. He was said to be a Catholic priest and former activist for the opposition Democratic party.
Kibwetere had recently told his followers to sell all their property and "prepare to go to heaven". He apparently said he was going to use their money to go to Europe and buy a replica of Noah's ark. It was not clear whether he was among the dead.
Local inhabitants said the members of the group had thrown a big party on Wednesday, at which they consumed 70 crates of soft drinks and three bulls. That evening they gathered personal belongings, including clothing, money, suitcases and church paraphernalia, and set them on fire in the middle of the camp.
The next day they went round nearby villages, bidding farewell. "They were aware they would die on March 17 because the Virgin Mary had promised to appear at the camp during the morning to carry them to heaven," said Anastasia Komuhangi, an elderly resident of Katate village.
A witness who saw inside the church said the position of many of the bodies suggested there had been a stampede for the exits when the fire began. He said he had found numerous victims piled near one exit.
The group, which considered its headquarters, Ishayuriro rya Maria (rescue place for the Virgin Mary), as the "holy land", believed that the Ten Commandments had been distorted and it was their mission to put them right. Cult members rarely talk, for fear of breaking the ninth commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness".
The group was founded in 1987 when the late Paul Kashaku, an elderly Catholic, claimed that he had seen Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Joseph in a vision. Most of the cult members were Catholics.
There had been rumours for some time that members had been massing near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest national park. Mujuni said authorities in Rukungiri district, in which Kanungu lies, had been monitoring the camp centred around the church.
"Cult leaders had for a whole week been ferrying in more believers from three other camps," he said. "In our estimation, the camp had about 650 occupants at the time."
Despite its belief that the end is near, the cult had opened a primary boarding school, which was closed by the local administration in November 1998 for "engaging in acts that violated the constitution . . . the Local Government Act and the public health regulations". Local leaders said that the government had licensed the camp as a religious community.
Ugandan authorities have been struggling in recent years to tackle the spread of fanatical doomsday groups. Last September, 250 heavily armed police disbanded one, called World Message Last Warning, run by Wilson Bushara, a self-styled prophet, which claimed to have 1,000 members. Its leaders were charged with rape, kidnapping and illegal confinement.
In November, police broke up another sect run by a teenage prophetess said to eat nothing but honey.

Forensic experts in Uganda are to begin sifting through the charred remains of more than 200 people who burned to death in a church..
They were all followers of a religious cult known as the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God.
Reports say they locked themselves in the church and set it ablaze in the small town of Kanungu, in Rukingeri district, about 320km (200 miles) south-west of the capital Kampala.
One report said the cult leaders - who included an excommunicated priest and several excommunicated nuns - told their followers to sell their possessions and prepare to go to heaven.
Police officials said it was unclear how many people died in the incident - believed to be the second-biggest mass suicide of recent history - because the bodies had been burned beyond recognition.

Women and children

One police spokesman, Assum Mugenyi, said there were about 235 registered cult members.
He said more than that were likely to have perished in the fire, including women and children.
"People said they heard screaming but it was all over very quickly," Mr Mugenyi said.

End of the world

Witnesses said there were signs that the cult was getting ready for a big event in the days leading up to the fire.
Members of the cult had bought up crates of soft drinks for a large party thrown by the group's leader, Joseph Kibweteere, in the middle of last week.
It is thought the members of the group donned white, green and black robes early on Friday morning, led their children into the makeshift church and chanted before setting the building alight.
The bodies were found in the centre of the shell of the building.
Cult leaders had predicted the world was going to end on 31 December 1999, according to a report in The Monitor newspaper on Sunday.
But, the newspaper said, they revised his prediction to 31 December 2000, when nothing happened at the end of the century.

Guerrilla warfare

The Ugandan Government has broken up two cults in the south in the past year, and is still fighting a war with another called The Lord's Resistance Army.
The Lord's Resistance Army is the successor to the violent Christian cult, the Holy Spirit Movement, which was formed in the 1980s.
Hundreds of supporters died in suicidal attacks believing a magic oil would protect them government troops.
The Lord's Resistance Army claims it is fighting to establish a rule of law based on the Biblical Ten Commandments.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Amama Mbabazi, told the government-owned Sunday Vision newspaper the government needed to review its procedures towards cults and establish measures that would "protect ordinary people from cult leaders".

At least 235 members of a Ugandan cult, including dozens of children, are believed to have died after setting themselves ablaze in a mass suicide, police said yesterday.
The followers of the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God sect locked themselves inside a makeshift church and set it alight, after several hours of chanting and singing. They apparently believed that the world was coming to an end this year. A police spokesman said: "There were about 235 registered [cult members] but there are likely to be more killed in the fire - ladies, children and men."
Followers had locked themselves into their church at breakfast time on Friday and set themselves alight, the officer said. He added that all 235 registered members of the sect in Kanungu - a small market town 200 miles south west of the capital Kampala, near the border with Congo - had probably perished in the fire and unregistered new arrivals may also have died.
The wooden-framed windows of the church appeared to have been boarded up and there was no sign of a struggle. The bodies - burned beyond recognition - lay in the centre of the shell of the building. He said that the corpses had been left for forensic scince experts to examine today.
The macabre act was thought to have been committed at the instigation of the cult's leader. Eric Naigambi, another police spokesman, said: "He told believers to sell off their possessions and prepare to go to heaven." However, some reports suggested that, rather than mass suicide, the cult leader led the congregation into the church, locked it and set it on fire.
Jonathan Turyareeda, a local police officer, said: "There were families inside, even small children."
Fanatical cults have been gaining popularity in Uganda in recent years. The government dispersed several last year, claiming that they were a threat to the local community. Edward Rugamayo, the Internal Affairs Minister, said if they had known of the Kanungu cult in time they would have broken it up.
In September, police raided a compound of the 1,000-member Doctrine of Brotherhood and found 24 decomposed bodies in shallow graves in Bokoto, 28 miles north of Kampala. The cult leader reportedly offered followers space in heaven after death in return for cash payment. Men were supposed to surrender their wives and the wives declare themselves unmarried before joining the sect.
The same month police raided a compound of the 1,000 member World Message Last Warning Church in Luwero. The cult had predicted that the world would end last June, but then adjusted their forecast to this year.

MBARARA, Uganda, March 18 - At least 235 members of a millennium cult, including dozens of children, are believed to have died by mass suicide in a blazing church in southwestern Uganda. Expecting the end of the world, followers of the obscure "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God" locked themselves in the church in the small town of Kanungu at breakfast time on Friday, police said on Saturday.
After several hours of chanting and singing, they set the church on fire, taking their own lives in the world's second biggest mass suicide of recent times.
Police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi, who visited the scene 320 km (200 miles) southwest of the capital Kampala, said all 235 registered members of the sect had probably perished in the fire and unregistered new arrivals may also have died.
He said police were having difficulty counting bodies burned beyond recognition.
"There were about 235 registered (cult members) but there are likely to be more killed in the fire - ladies, children and men," Mugenyi said.

Led by Excommunicated Priests and Nuns

Cult leaders, who included three excommunicated priests and two excommunicated nuns, taught that the world would end in the year 2000. Their followers dressed in a uniform of white, green and black robes.
"Prior to this incident their leader told believers to sell off their possessions and prepare to go to Heaven," Mugenyi said, adding that the police were treating the incident as both suicide and murder because children were involved.
"Definitely it is both because there were a big number of children who were led there by their parents," he said.
He said the wooden-framed windows of the church appeared to have been boarded up and there was no sign of a struggle. The bodies - burned beyond recognition - lay in the center of the shell of the building.
"People said they heard some screaming but it was all over very quickly," he said, adding that locals had also heard an explosion.
He said the corpses had been left where they lay for forensic experts to examine on Sunday.
The church is 40 km (25 miles) north of Rwanda, where 800,000 people were slaughtered in the 1994 genocide, and 15 km (10 miles) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where armies of six African states have been sucked into a messy civil war.

Byword for Horrors

A former British colony once called the Pearl of Africa for its fertile soil and plentiful rains, Uganda became a byword for African horrors during the 1971-79 dictatorship of Idi Amin, whose regime killed up to 500,000 opponents and expelled 70,000 people of Asian origin.
More bloodshed followed Amin's downfall, until guerrilla leader Yoweri Museveni won power in 1986, restoring relative peace.
But an extreme and violent Christian cult, the Holy Spirit Movement, sprang up among northern ethnic groups in the late 1980s. Many hundreds of believers died in suicidal attacks, convinced that magic oil would protect them from the bullets of Museveni's troops.
Its successor, the Lord's Resistance Army, is still pursuing a guerrilla war, kidnapping large numbers of boys and girls to serve as soldiers and sex slaves and dodging back and forth across the border with southern Sudan, which has a long running civil war of its own.
Since last year, the police have asked all religious sects or cults to register their members locally. In September, police in central Uganda disbanded another Doomsday cult, the 1,000-member "World Message Last Warning" sect.
The cult's leaders were charged with rape, kidnapping and illegal confinement.
The largest mass suicide of recent times took place in 1978 when a paranoid U.S. pastor, the Reverend Jim Jones, led 914 followers to their deaths at Jonestown, Guyana, by drinking a cyanide-laced fruit drink.
Cult members who refused to swallow the liquid were shot. Jones had carved a sign over his altar at Jonestown, reading "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."
In recent years there have been several smaller group suicides in Europe and North America, three of them involving the Solar Temple, an international sect that believes death by ritual suicide leads to rebirth.

More than 235 followers of a religious cult in Uganda are reported to have died in an apparent mass suicide.
The bodies of the members of the cult - known as the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God - were found in their church in the small town of Kanungu, in the southwest of the country.
There were about 235 registered cult members but there are likely to be more killed in the fire - ladies, children and men, Assum Mbabazi, police spokesman: "They had been burned beyond recognition. Police said this made it impossible to give an exact figure for the number of dead."
Chief Inspector John Kisembo told the BBC: "It is not clear how many died or who they were because inside the church it was a mass of charred bodies."
Another police spokesman, Assum Mugenyi, told Reuters news agency there were about 235 registered cult members.
He said more than that were likely to have perished in the fire, including women and children.
A team of police doctors is being flown to the site of the makeshift church in Rukingiri district, about 320km (200 miles) south-west of the capital Kampala, near Uganda's border with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
"I think it calls on the state to review the issue of cults and see what measures need to be taken to protect the ordinary people from cult leaders"
(Amama Mbabazi, minister of state for foreign affairs) They will try to establish exactly how many people died.
The details of what happened are still sketchy.
Local people said there had been rumours that the leader of the cult was urging his followers to sell their possessions in preparation for death.

End of the world

Witnesses said there were signs that the cult were getting ready for a big event in the days leading up to the fire.
Members of the cult had bought up crates of soft drinks for a large party thrown by the group's leader, Joseph Kibweteere, in the middle of last week.
Mr Mugenyi told Reuters news agency that the wooden-framed windows of the church appeared to have been boarded up and there was no sign of a struggle.
The bodies were found in the centre of the shell of the building.
Mr Kibweteere predicted the world was going to end on 31 December 1999, according to a report in The Monitor newspaper on Sunday.
But, the newspaper said, Mr Kibweteere had revised his prediction to 31 December 2000, when nothing happened at the end of the century.

Recent clampdowns

The Ugandan Government has broken up two cults in the south in the past year.
A government spokesman said it had no prior knowledge of the Kanungu cult.
If it had, it would have dispersed it too.
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Amama Mbabazi, told the government-owned Sunday Vision newspaper the government needed to review its procedures towards cults.
"I think [the fire] calls on the state to review the issue of cults and see what measures to take to protect the ordinary people from cult leaders," Mr Mbabazi said.
Police raided a compound of the 1,000-member World Message Last Warning Church in the central town of Luwero last September.
The said they found seven girls who had been sexually assaulted, three boys being held against their will and 18 unidentified shallow graves.
In November, about 100 riot police raided and disbanded an illegal camp at Ntusi in Sembabule district, home of a self-styled teenage prophetess who was said to eat nothing but honey.

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Police are expected to begin recovering burned remains Sunday from the deaths of at least 235 people in what they are treating as an apparent mass murder-suicide among members of a doomsday sect.
The tragedy occurred inside the group's church. With doors locked and windows boarded shut beginning at breakfast time on Friday, followers sang and chanted for several hours, then set the church on fire, police said.
"People said they heard some screaming but it was all over very quickly," said police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi, just back from the scene in the village of Kanungu, 320 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of the capital Kampala.
Leaders of the sect, called "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God," preached that the world would end in 2000. The group included three excommunicated priests and two excommunicated nuns.
"Prior to this incident, their leader told believers to sell off their possessions and prepare to go to heaven," Mugenyi said, adding that the police were treating the incident as both suicide and murder because children were involved.
"Definitely it is both because there were a big number of children who were led there by their parents," he said.
Early reports from The Associated Press quoted an anonymous police source who said some followers had been lured into the church before it was set ablaze.
Men and women believers sold their belongings, donned white, green and black robes and brought their children into the church in the remote little town on Kanungu.

Sect leader's fate unknown

It was unclear whether sect leader Joseph Kibweteere also died in the fire. He had predicted the world would end December 31, 1999, but later changed it to December 31, 2000, according to the independent newspaper The Monitor.
The Monitor quoted Kanungu residents as saying Kibweteere started preaching in 1994 and was a former member of the Roman Catholic Church.
Witnesses told the Monitor they smelled gasoline and there was an explosion that set the church on fire. Local leaders said members of the sect slaughtered their cattle and feasted for a week, drinking a large supply of soft drinks and singing religious songs, the Monitor reported.
If reports that the Uganda fire was a mass suicide prove true, it would be the second-largest mass suicide in recent history, topped by the poisoning deaths of 914 followers of the Rev. Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978.

Uganda's history of violent religious sects

Violent religious sects have caused trouble in Uganda in the past, prompting authorities last year to require sect members to register with the government.
Mugenyi said all 235 registered members of the sect had probably perished in the fire, as well as some unregistered new arrivals as well.
"I think it (the fire) calls on the state to review the issue of cults and see what measures to take to protect the ordinary people from cult leaders," Amama Mbabazi, minister of state for foreign affairs, told the government-owned Sunday Vision newspaper.
In September, police in central Uganda disbanded another doomsday cult, the 1,000-member "World Message Last Warning" sect. The leaders were charged with rape, kidnapping and illegal confinement.
An extreme and violent Christian cult, the Holy Spirit Movement, sprang up in poor areas of northern Uganda in the late 1980s. Several hundred followers of that group died in suicidal attacks against government troops, convinced that magic oil would protect them.
Its successor, the Lord's Resistance Army, is still pursuing a guerrilla war. It claims it wants to rule the country on the basis of the Biblical Ten Commandments, yet it has kidnapped thousands of boys and girls to serve as soldiers and sex slaves, and frequently commits atrocities against local people.
In recent years there have been several smaller group suicides in Europe and North America, three involving the Solar Temple, an international sect that believes death by ritual suicide leads to rebirth.

‘I think it calls on the state to review the issue of cults and see what measures to take to protect the ordinary people from cult leaders.’
— AMAMA MBABAZI Ugandan minister of state for foreign affairs

Uganda, March 18 — At least 235 cult members, including dozens of children, are believed to have died after setting themselves ablaze in a mass suicide in southwestern Uganda, police said Saturday.
“THERE WERE ABOUT 235 registered (cult members), but there are likely to be more killed in the fire — ladies, children and men,” police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi said after visiting the scene of Friday’s suicide.
Followers of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God had locked themselves into their church at breakfast time Friday and set themselves alight, he said.
It was unclear whether sect leader Joseph Kibweteere died in the fire in the small trading center of Kanungu, 217 miles from Kampala, Uganda’s capital, and near the Congolese border. He had predicted that the world would end Dec. 31 but changed it to Dec. 31, 2000, after nothing happened, the independent newspaper The Monitor said in its Sunday edition.

NO SIGN OF STRUGGLE

Mugenyi said that all 235 registered members had probably perished in the fire and that unregistered new arrivals may also have died. The wood-frame windows of the church appeared to have been boarded up, and there was no sign of a struggle, he said.
The bodies — burned beyond recognition — lay in the center of the shell of the building, left where they lay for forensic experts to examine Sunday.
A police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said preliminary reports indicated that Kibweteere lured his followers inside the church and then set it ablaze. Mugenyi said an unspecified number of police officers may have been killed in the fire, as well.
Witnesses told the Monitor they smelled gasoline and there was an explosion that set the church on fire.
Local leaders said members of the sect, the Movement for the Restoration of Ten Commandments of God, slaughtered their cattle and feasted for a week, drinking a large supply of soft drinks and singing religious songs, according to the Monitor.

SECT REGISTERED WITH GOVERNMENT

As required by law, the sect was registered by the government in 1997. The Monitor quoted Kanungu residents as saying Kibweteere started preaching in 1994 and was a defector from the Roman Catholic Church.

More than 100 members of a Ugandan Doomsday cult have died in an apparent mass suicide ritual.
The followers of the Restoration Of The Ten Commandments of God sect locked themselves in a makeshift church and set themselves alight after several hours of chanting and singing, Ugandan police said on Saturday.
The incident occurred on Friday at Kanungu in Rukingiri district, about 320km (200 miles) southwest of Kampala.
A police team has flown to the church to start an investigation. They said there was no clear indication as to why the group had committed suicide.
The Internal Affairs Minister, Edward Rugamayo, told the BBC that if he had known about the group in time he would have dispersed them.

Following the leader

A police spokesman said the act was committed at the instigation of the cult's leader, a local man:
"He told believers to sell off their possessions and prepare to go to heaven" he said.
The group reportedly had been active in the region for some time.
The government has dispersed two cults in Uganda over the past year, claiming they posed a threat both to themselves and to the local community.
Police raided a compound of the 1,000-member World Message Last Warning Church in the central town of Luwero last September.
The said they found seven girls who had been sexually assaulted, three boys being held against their will and 18 unidentified shallow graves.
In November about 100 riot police raided and disbanded an illegal camp at Ntusi in Sembabule district, home of a self-styled teenage prophetess who was said to eat nothing but honey.
The authorities regarded the camp as a security threat, with rebels known to have infiltrated the area.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) -- At least 235 followers of a doomsday cult burned to death in a church fire in a remote part of southwestern Uganda, authorities said Saturday.
It was unclear whether sect leader Joseph Kibweteere died in the fire in the small trading center of Kanungu, 217 miles from Uganda's capital, Kampala, and near the Congolese border. He had predicted the world would end Dec. 31 but changed it to Dec. 31, 2000, after nothing happened, said the independent newspaper The Monitor in its Sunday edition.
A police officer, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, said preliminary reports indicated Kibweteere lured his followers inside the church and then set it ablaze.
Police spokesman Asuman Mugenyi said an unspecified number of police officers may have been killed in the fire, which he said took place Thursday. Other police said the church burned on Friday.
Witnesses told the Monitor they smelled gasoline and there was an explosion that set the church on fire.
Local leaders said members of the sect, the Movement for the Restoration of Ten Commandments of God, slaughtered their cattle and feasted for a week, drinking a large supply of soft drinks and singing religious songs, according to the Monitor.
As required by law, the sect was registered by the government in 1997. The Monitor quoted Kanungu residents as saying Kibweteere started preaching in 1994 and was a defector from the Roman Catholic Church.
``I think it (the fire) calls on the state to review the issue of cults and see what measures to take to protect the ordinary people from cult leaders,'' Amama Mbabazi, minister of state for foreign affairs, told the government-owned Sunday Vision newspaper.
Last year, police evicted about 1,000 members of a similar sect from a camp northwest of Kampala, accusing the members of crimes that included defilement of minors, rape, abduction and theft.

KANUNGU, Uganda (CNN) -- At least 120 followers of a religious sect that believed the world was coming to an end burned to death Friday in a fire at their church, police said Saturday.
Initial reports differed as to whether the sect members had committed mass suicide or were lured to their deaths by their leader.
Police said the death toll could go as high as 230, the Reuters news agency reported. Investigators said it was difficult to count the bodies, which were burned beyond recognition.
The Associated Press reported that police said the fire happened in Kanungu, a small trading center about 217 miles southwest of Uganda's capital, Kampala.
"There were families inside, even small children," Jonathan Turyareeda, a local police officer, told Reuters.
Reuters quoted police as saying members of the sect set themselves on fire in a ritual mass suicide after several hours of chanting and singing.
Pius Muteekana Katunzi, an editor with the Sunday Monitor newspaper in Kampala, told CNN that some local reports said members of the sect marched to the church, locked themselves inside and then set themselves ablaze.
But a police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AP that it appeared that the sect leader lured his unwitting followers inside and then set the fire.
"Preliminary reports indicate that the leader of this sect lured the people inside the church and set it on fire," the officer said.
A police spokesman told AP the sect was known to have about 240 members and was called the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. The sect believed the world will end in the year 2000, he said.
Katunzi reported that last year members of the sect burned their property and sold their belongings. A police spokesman gave a similar account to Reuters.
"Prior to this incident their leader told believers to sell off their possessions and prepare to go to heaven," the police spokesman said.

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