Kampala - Children playing in the grounds of the Ugandan doomsday cult headquarters were ushered back into a building just before it was set ablaze, killing up to 400 people, according to a witness cited by police.
The bodies of 78 children were among the remains of 330 people counted in the headquarters of the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Kunungu, southwest Uganda.
The only eye-witness police said late Monday that they had been able to interview was a woman who had come to the compound to visit her mother, who was a member of the sect. The woman told police that she had seen children leave the cult's church to go out to play but that cult leaders then herded them back into the building where she heard singing.
The woman then heard an explosion and shouts, Police said. Peering through a boarded-up window of the building where fire had broken out, the witness said she saw people in agony. Internal affairs minister Edward Rugumayo said the body of one of the two identified dead, a disgraced priest, Dominic Kataribaabo, was found at the far end of the church, away from other members.
He said Kataribaabo may have died as he tried to escape with a baby in his arms.

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) -- Pathologists today examined the bodies of six men found in a communal latrine on the compound of a religious sect where several hundred people died in a fire last week. Police said the six appear to have been killed some time before the fire.
Police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi gave no details, and said today that an exact cause of death had not been determined. The bodies appeared to have been in the latrine for more than two weeks, he said.
Police were also preparing to exhume between six and eight graves in front of the remains of the makeshift church in southwestern Uganda where the members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God gathered for the last time March 17, sang hymns, prayed and burned themselves alive.
''The graves were dug some time ago, but we have to exhume the bodies to check the cause of death,'' Mugenyi said. ''Investigations are continuing, but we have not yet made any arrests.'' Although they say the number of dead may be as high as 500, police say they managed to count 330 bodies, including those of 78 children, in the church in the compound outside Kanungu, a trading center 220 miles southwest of Kampala.
Bulldozers pushed the tangled mass of bodies and mounds of ash into a common grave Tuesday, then knocked down what had been the church.
Confusion persisted over the fate of the leaders of the sect, who have been identified as former Roman Catholic priests, lay workers and nuns. Cledonia Mwerinde, identified both as a former nun and a former prostitute, reportedly built the compound on the site of her parents' farm in 1989.
The police originally said all the leaders had died in the fire, then backtracked.
On Tuesday, Parliament called on the government to launch an investigation into the sect deaths and into other sects reportedly operating in the East African nation.
According to news reports, Interior Minister Edward Rugumayo told legislators that the body of one former priest, Dominic Kataribabo, 32, had been identified at the far end of the church, some distance from the other sect members.
On Tuesday, Uganda's Roman Catholic bishops emerged from an annual retreat to issue a warning to the faithful about being misled by ''obsessed leaders into an obnoxious form of religiosity completely rejected by the Catholic Church.''

K A M P A L A, March 22 - Police raised their estimated death toll for last week's doomsday blaze in Uganda to 530 on Wednesday, as theories abounded on how and why the cult members set the deadly fire in their church. The tragedy was initially thought to have been a mass ritual suicide, although police have said they are treating the deaths of at least 78 children in the blaze as murder. (Magellan Geographix/ABCNEWS.com) The victims included at least 78 children whose deaths were being treated as murders, they said.
One of the cult's leaders had purchased 10 gallons of sulphuric acid days before the tragedy, police said.
Mixed with petrol, experts said the acid would form a highly inflammable and explosive mix that would give off a poisonous gas when burnt - a possible cause of the sudden explosion and fire which engulfed the remote church on Friday, March 17.
Big Acid Purchase
Police said Dominic Kataribabo, a former Catholic priest, bought two 5-gallon jerrycans of the acid on March 12, telling a local storekeeper that he wanted to use it in car batteries.
No car batteries were found in the ruins of the church compound in the remote town of Kanungu. But an empty drum was found at one end of the church building and police initially said it could have been used for fuel.
"It is confirmed it (the acid) was bought, but we are still waiting for the forensic experts to tell us whether it was used in the fire," police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi said.
Mass Grave
An exact death toll might never be known. Hundreds of charred corpses were bulldozed unceremoniously into a mass grave on Monday, but Mugenyi said officials at the scene of the inferno now thought 530 cult members perished.
The tragedy was initially thought to have been a mass ritual suicide, although police have said they are treating the deaths of at least 78 children in the blaze as murder.
Many relatives of the dead said they doubted if all the members of the "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God" were willing participants in the conflagration.
On Tuesday the decomposing bodies of six male adults - one with a crushed head, others with slashed stomachs - were pulled from a pit latrine in the church compound.
Murder?
After a cursory examination, a doctor said the six appeared to have been murdered not long before the fire was set. The bodies were swiftly buried, with Mugenyi saying on Wednesday they were too badly decomposed to be positively identified.
More bodies were found buried in a vegetable garden in the compound, but police said they had probably died earlier, from natural causes.
"We are yet to carry out a post-mortem, but we suspect there are around seven or eight - both children and grown-ups," Mugenyi said. "The sect did not allow any medication for illness - only prayers." Relatives and former members of the group said life in the sect was rigorous, with leaders forbidding sexual relations and forcing members into hard labour without payment.
Police say they suspect the overall leader, 68-year-old Joseph Kibwetere, died in the fire. They also say they had identified the bodies of two of his associates, including Kataribabo.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Police have raised the estimated death toll for last week's doomsday blaze in Uganda to 530 as theories abound on how and why the cult members set the deadly fire in their church.
The victims included at least 78 children whose deaths were being treated as murders, they said.
One of the cult's leaders had purchased 40 litres (10 U.S. gallons) of sulphuric acid days before the tragedy, police said on Wednesday.
Mixed with petrol, experts said the acid would form a highly inflammable and explosive mix that would give off a poisonous gas when burnt -- a possible cause of the sudden explosion and fire which engulfed the remote church on Friday, March 17.
Police said Dominic Kataribabo, a former Catholic priest, bought two 20-litre (5 U.S. gallon) jerrycans of the acid on March 12, telling a local storekeeper that he wanted to use it in car batteries.
No car batteries were found in the ruins of the church compound in the remote town of Kanungu. But an empty drum was found at one end of the church building and police initially said it could have been used for fuel.
"It is confirmed it (the acid) was bought, but we are still waiting for the forensic experts to tell us whether it was used in the fire," police spokesman Assuman Mugenyi said.
An exact death toll might never be known. Hundreds of charred corpses were bulldozed unceremoniously into a mass grave on Monday, but Mugenyi said officials at the scene of the inferno now thought 530 cult members perished.
CHILDREN'S DEATHS CALLED MURDER
The tragedy was initially thought to have been a mass ritual suicide, although police have said they are treating the deaths of at least 78 children in the blaze as murder.
Many relatives of the dead said they doubted if all the members of the "Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God" were willing participants in the conflagration.
On Tuesday the decomposing bodies of six male adults -- one with a crushed head, others with slashed stomachs -- were pulled from a pit latrine in the church compound.
After a cursory examination, a doctor said the six appeared to have been murdered not long before the fire was set. The bodies were swiftly buried, with Mugenyi saying on Wednesday they were too badly decomposed to be positively identified.
More bodies were found buried in a vegetable garden in the compound, but police said they had probably died earlier, from natural causes.
"We are yet to carry out a post-mortem, but we suspect there are around seven or eight -- both children and grown-ups," Mugenyi said. "The sect did not allow any medication for illness -- only prayers."
Relatives and former members of the group said life in the sect was rigorous, with leaders forbidding sexual relations and forcing members into hard labour without payment.
Police say they suspect the overall leader, 68-year-old Joseph Kibwetere, died in the fire. They also say they had identified the bodies of two of his associates, including Kataribabo.

Police in Uganda say that a large quantity of explosives may have caused the deaths of hundreds of members of a doomsday cult last Friday.
A senior police officer, Stephen Okwalinga, said that the findings from investigations showed that bombs went off at six points in the church.
At least 330 burned to death, including 78 children, at the church in the village of Kanungu in western Uganda.
Initial reports suggested that the cult members had used petrol to set themselves alight.
On Tuesday, police dug up the badly decomposed bodies of six men in a pit latrine in a house used by the leaders.
Three of the bodies had their stomachs slit open, and another had a crushed head.
Some of the bodies appeared to have been struck with machetes or hammers.
A doctor at the scene said they appeared to have been murdered before the blaze at the church belonging to the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God.
"Some were beaten, some were burnt, some were chemically poisoned then their bodies were dumped down in the pit," Dr Sam Birungi said.
Police are still unsure whether the cult leader was among those who died.

Catholic church condemns
On Tuesday, Uganda's Catholic bishops condemned the deaths as "barbaric, most regrettable and unacceptable in the Catholic faith".
Distancing themselves from the cult which drew heavily on Roman Catholicism, the bishops said that members "were misled by obsessed leaders into an obnoxious form of religiosity completely rejected by the Catholic Church".
Sect leaders included several defrocked Catholic priests and nuns, and Catholic-style icons were found at the cult's place of worship.
The bodies of the dead have been buried in a mass grave at the site, in some cases before the relatives had had a chance to provide identification.
Many of the bodies were so badly incinerated as to make identification almost impossible.

Kampala - Self-styled doomsday prophet Joseph Kibwetere, leader of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, masterminded the massacre of hundreds of followers in Rukungiri to stem off mounting opposition from his flock.
Rukungiri security officials are investigating reports that the flock had started questioning Kibwetere's assistants about the end of the world which he predicted would be on January 1, 2000.
Other reports indicated that many members quit the cult at the beginning of the year, saying they had been duped. "They were so furious with him for making them destitute by selling their property and we hear they have been planning to confiscate his property at Kabumba, Ntungamo, to compensate themselves," a top Rukungiri Police officer said on Sunday.
Assistant Resident District Commissioner the Rev Stephen Bangumya said yesterday Kibwetere escaped the Kanungu inferno.
"Our investigations show that Kibwetere has not been in the country for some time. We believe he masterminded the massacre of his followers to stem off opposition, which was mounting in the camp," he said.
Kibwetere issued a statement to a local vernacular weekly, Orumuri, in January reassuring his followers that Jesus Christ had re-appeared to him with another message.
He quoted Jesus as saying the world would not end on January 1, 2000 as he (Kibwetere) had prophesied but at the end of 2000.
The handwritten statement in Runyankore, which was never published, was issued from the cults headquarters at Ishayuriro rya Maria P. O. Box 19 Karuhinda, Kanungu, Rukungiri district.
He wrote: "I Joseph Kibwetere, my boss Jesus Christ, has appeared to me and given me a message to all of you that there are some people arguing over the message that this generation ends on 1/1/2000. On the contrary, the generation ends at the end of the year 2000 and no other year will follow.
Kibwetere said the programmes to re-assure the people about the end of the world and restoration of the Ten Commandments were slated to be broadcast on Radio Toro and Radio Uganda soon.
These programmes did not, however, take off.

KANUNGU, Uganda, Tuesday - A woman who lost 17 family members in Uganda's cult doomsday blaze joined relatives paying their last respects on Tuesday to the hundreds of dead at the site of the mass suicide.
A mound of red earth marked the spot where the bodies of perhaps 500 cultists were unceremoniously buried in a mass grave late on Monday, while other corpses lay undisturbed in the pit-latrine where they were found.
Christine Kapere, who drove to this remote corner of southwest Uganda from the Rwandan capital of Kigali with her husband and young baby, said she had lost 17 relatives, including her mother and father.
Her parents had unsuccessfully tried to convince her to join the sect, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. "I never believed in it, I knew it was a cult," she said.
The exact death toll may never be known, but officials said more than 500 people could have been killed in last Friday's tragedy, in which cult members, expecting the world to end, boarded themselves inside a church before setting it ablaze.
Police said they were treating the case as both suicide and murder, because the bodies of at least 78 children were found among the dead. The discovery on Monday of more bodies buried in the cult's compound in the small town of Kanungu cast an even more ominous light on the episode.
A fire brigade team was expected to arrive later on Tuesday to pull out at least five corpses which had been dumped in a pit-latrine in the compound, while detectives were also expected to determine their cause of death.
The cult's members apparently believed the world was about to be destroyed for not obeying the Ten Commandments, and only those who gathered in their church would gain salvation.
Kapere said her parents had written to her saying they were "preparing to go to Heaven".
But like many other relatives, she found it hard to believe they could have willingly taken their own lives. "It was forced," she said. "They have been murdered. It was not free." Barefoot prisoners started to bury the dead on Monday before a bulldozer arrived to finish the job.     As the sun set over the lush green hills, the bulldozer demolished the mud and cement walls of the ruined church, then scooped up the remaining bodies and threw them with the rubble into a grave.
"It is a shame that they are being buried like animals," said Patrick, a Ugandan soldier, as he watched the burial. "They were Christians and there were no final prayers."
The Roman Catholic Church in Uganda has disowned the sect, which was led by a failed politician and several excommunicated Catholic priests and nuns.
"No mass will be celebrated in the affected families," Archbishop Paul Bakyenga of western Uganda said.

Five hundred and thirty people have so far been established to have perished in the Kanungu mass suicide, internal affairs minister Prof. Edward Rugumayo told Parliament yesterday.
Rugumayo said in a ministerial statement that information received yesterday morning put the number of the mass suicide victims at 530, 78 of them children. Rugumayo said on Monday 330 charred bodies had been counted. The rest were burnt beyond recognition.
Parliament, presided over by Speaker Francis Ayume, passed a resolution condemning the mass suicide.  It also asked the Government to launch an immediate  inquiry into the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten the Commandments of God, whose followers were involved in the mass suicide, and other similar organisations.
The MPs said religious organisations and other NGOs should be scrutinised to stop the occurrence of a similar event.
The motion for the resolution, which was unanimously supported, was moved by Rukungiri women MP Winnie Babihuga and seconded by Brig. Jim Muhwezi (Rujumbura).
Attorney General Bart Katureebe and Kabale woman MP Christine Mwebesa stunned the House with a revelation that another ex-Catholic priest, Bishanga Kabushanga, now working as The Monitor correspondent, in 1978 murdered nine women whom he had recruited in his sect after he was dismissed from the Catholic Church.
Katureebe said Kabushanga was sentenced to 72 years in imprison but was released when Idi Amin was overthrown in 1979. Kabushanga, who was at the time based in Fort Portal, murdered the women by poisoning. But he himself did not have the guts to take the poison, Katureebe said.
Rugumayo said the Kanungu cult, which was headed by doomsday prophet Joseph Kibwetere, had 4,200 followers with branches in various parts of the country, including Namasuba on Entebbe Road.
"The sect was sworn to silence. There was little communication with the outside world. They were friendly but silent," Rugumayo said.
Beatrice Kiraso (Kabarole) talked about the existence of a "sex cult" in her home district whose followers  purportedly seek to produce children and "fill the world."
Mrs Joyce Mpanga, Mubende Woman MP and chairperson of the NGO Registration Board, said the cult took a long time to be registered.
She said in 1994, the Rukungiri Resident District Commissioner wrote to the Board against the cult's activities. But other local leaders supported the cult, saying it was operating  within the law.
Mpanga said  the board tried in vain to  stop the cult's secrecy code.

The Police have dismissed earlier reports that the cult leaders used petrol to incinerate their followers.
Stephen Okwalinga, the south- western regional Police Commander said, "Our findings so far indicate that it was not petrol. They must have used explosives. Fire begun at six different points, but what's more puzzling is that we have received information that the cult leaders bought two jerrycans of concentrated sulphuric acid," he said.
There are conflicting reports about whether the cult leaders died in the inferno or poisoned themselves and died in the pit.
The Police said they suspected the leader of the sect, failed politician and self-styled prophet, 68-year-old Joseph Kibwetere, also died in the blaze.
"Some people said he was there," Stephen Okwalinga told Reuters. "Unless we find him alive, we think he was there."
The bodies of two other senior members of the sect, including a former Catholic priest, Father Dominic Kataribabo, had been identified among the corpses, a Police spokesman said.
Other cult leaders were still being sought in four other locations used by the organisation in southwest Uganda.
"We are looking for other possible leaders who may be here in Uganda," Okwalinga said.
Local residents said cult members had been arriving from the other centres several days before the blaze.
In Kanungu, hundreds of cult members, many with their children, were last seen entering the prayer house on Friday morning dressed up in their finest white, green and black robes.
It was there that they were to await salvation, while the rest of the world would be destroyed for not obeying the Ten Commandments.
But while it appeared clear that the cult members willingly walked into the church, many local residents believe the leaders duped their followers into attending the prayer meeting by telling them they were about to be saved.
They believe the cult members were murdered and that the windows and doors were nailed shut to prevent their escape.
More suspected dead cult members were discovered in  one of the buildings at the scene on Monday.
The Minister for Internal Affairs, Edward Rugumayo, using a torch peeped in the dark pit and counted about seven decomposing bodies.
The pit is located in a church building, which doubles as a residence for the cult leaders. A shocked Rugumayo said, "My God, this is unbelievable.. The perpetrators of this crime will have to be brought to book."
Rugumayo, on Monday, flew aboard a chopper to the Movement of the Restoration of the Ten Commandments base at Kataate, Kanungu  premises.
A total of 330 skulls and charred remains of the suicide victims were on Monday  buried in a mass grave  using a bulldozer. The church was also broken down.
During the burial, there was a huge cloud of dust and a stench of rotten flesh.
A man who identified himself as Frank Muchunguzi from Karuhinda, a village about two kilometers away, told The New Vision that he was among a group of workers who participated in digging the pit in 1997.
Muchunguzi said,  "The pit is 35 feet deep, 19 feet long and 6 feet wide. We dug it in 1997. We were later ordered to fill up most of it and then a residence/church was built on top of it."
The building on top of the pit was the home of the 12 cult leaders. It had 12 rooms with bathrooms and toilets.

REV. FR. Dominic Kataribaabo, one of the assistants to suicide cult leader Joseph Kibwetere, on March 13 brought 100 copies of his book, A Timely Message From Heaven to Kampala for sale and free distribution to 12 of his former students.
Mr. Maurice Tukamuhebwa, General Manager of Pearl Computer Services, said Kataribaabo visited his office at 4.00p.m. carrying a black polythene bag containing the books and a list of the people to receive free copies. The rest of the books were to be sold at sh10,000 each.
"He told me to sell each at sh10,000, saying he would get the money from me but didn't indicate when he would return," Tukamuhebwa said yesterday.
The list of people to receive free copies only comprises Kataribaabo's former students at Kitabi seminary.
They are Gabriel Tibayungwa, a Superintendent of Police; Gaston Bashobora, a Police officer; Julius Kagamba, working at the Ugandan Embassy in Moscow and Gervase Ndyanabo.
The others are Adolf Mbaine, a university lecturer, Marcellino Kyamutetera, an employee of the Passport Office; Callist Tumwine and Deus Ahimbisibwe.
Sources said none of the people on the list belongs to the cult.
Speaking in Runyaruguru, Kataribaabo reportedly said, "Maurice, the Virgin Mary is coming anytime. You go and tell your wife about it."
Kataribaabo, who wore green and white robes, looked excited and kept smiling.
Tukamuhebwa said Kataribaabo told him the cyclone that caused floods in Mozambique would also affect Uganda.

A peasant farmer near Rukungiri town has gone berserk after losing 11 members of his family in the Friday inferno at Katate, Kanungu.
Francis Bwigoro, 60, was yesterday tied with ropes in his home at Kyatoko, about one and a half kilometers east of the town.
He has since been strapped onto a wooden chair locally known as 'Katongole'..
The gray-haired and disheveled elderly man was dressed in a short-sleeved multi-coloured shirt and was barefooted. He wailed and muttered unintelligible utterances.
Neighbours told The New Vision that he broke down, ran out of his house after he learnt that his relatives had been buried in a mass grave on Monday.
Bereaved neighbours said Bwigoro lost his wife Meledh Kobusingye, 52. The dead sons were Enos Turinawe, 15, Henry Tukahirwa, 19, and Richard Tumubweine, 28.
The daughters were  Justine, 18, Restetuta Tumusime, 32, Constance, 15, Sarah, 12, Elizabeth, 9 (granddaughter), and Ruth Tumuhimbise, 7, (granddaughter).
Another resident identified as John Tibenderana lost nine family members.

BODIES TO BE DUG UP
by Grace Matsiko
THE Police will today begin exhuming all bodies discovered in pit-latrines, vegetable gardens and a building at the scene of the mass suicide in Kanungu .
Chief spokesman Asuman Mugyenyi said the Police want to know the cause of  their death. He said reports indicated that the victims were murdered following misunderstandings in the camp.
He said the fire brigade was yesterday sent from Mbarara to exhume the bodies for a postmortem.

SUICIDE CONDEMNED
by John Eremu
THE Uganda Joint Christian Council has condemned the Kanungu suicide and called on government to review the registration of the emerging numerous religious sects.
The council's executive secretary, Rev. Canon Grace Kaiso, said yesterday they were shocked by the incident.

'MY WIFE IS IN HEAVEN'
by Innocent Nahabwe
Peter Bamurumba, a Mbarara businessman, on Monday stopped people from mourning his wife Seforoza, saying she had gone to heaven.
Seforoza died in the Kanungu inferno.
Speaking at a requiem mass for his wife held at his home in Kakoba division Mbarara municipality, Bamurumba said his wife had since the beginning of the year been telling him that she wanted to go to heaven and that he was sure that since she died searching for it, she had gone there.

CULT FORBADE SEX IN CAMP
KANUNGU, Tuesday - Followers of the cult who died on Friday were forbidden by their leaders to have sex and were forced into hard labour without payment.
Relatives and former cult members said men and women, including married couples, slept in separate dormitories and no children were ever born to members of the 13-year-old cult.
"A woman who became pregnant was beaten until she miscarried. In the end she left the religion," an uncle to one of the cult's leaders said.

KANUNGU, Uganda, March 21 -- As the last bodies were dumped into mass graves today, forensic investigators at the site of the inferno here that burned more than 400 people to death discovered the bodies of several others who appeared to have been murdered and dumped into a latrine pit.
Who they were and why they were killed was not immediately clear.
Investigators counted 330 bodies and estimated that more than a hundred others may have died, their remains burned to ashes in a chapel here controlled by a cult called the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. It was the largest mass suicide-murder since 1978, when 912 followers of Jim Jones died in Guyana.
Perhaps the most pressing question is the fate of the cult's leader, Joseph Kibwetere, and his lieutenants. The police do not know which, if any, of them died in the fire that was intentionally set last Friday. Any who are still alive could face murder charges, the police have said.
While authorities pressed ahead, religious leaders tried to distance themselves from the cult.
Uganda's Roman Catholic hierarchy issued a statement today that said the leaders of the cult, two of whom it identified as former Roman Catholic priests, had been excommunicated because they had "erred and broke the discipline of the church." The sect members "were misled by obsessed leaders into an obnoxious form of religiosity completely rejected by the Catholic Church," according to the statement, issued in Kampala, the Ugandan capital.
The bishops interrupted an annual retreat to respond to suggestions that they had erred in isolating the sect over disagreements on doctrine.
The sect's leaders had proclaimed that the world would end in 2000, saying they received the message directly from God, the bishops said. The leaders had also preached that only those who heeded their apocalyptic message would go directly to heaven.
Sects like this, including the most notorious and most politically active here, the Lord's Resistance Army, have been problems for the Uganda government for years, and in recent months the police broke up two cults that were becoming threats.
What happened here was a "crazy thing," and shows how people can be brainwashed, said the Rev. Benon Nkwasinbwe, an Anglican priest in northern Uganda.
"These kinds of cults are spreading," he said as he walked around the compound. "I'm very worried about it."
The problem is complicated for government and religious leaders who do not want to appear to infringe on religious freedom in this mostly Christian country but want to ensure that the country does not endure a repeat of what happened last Friday.
"It did not have to happen," the Rev. Martin Sempa, a leading evangelical Christian leader said tonight on Radio One, repeatedly endorsing government efforts to flush out dangerous extremist religious groups. "And it should not happen again."
Today, members of Uganda's Parliament called for an inquiry into the deaths and demanded that the police do a better job of identifying potential problems among such groups.
Active for more than a decade, the Ten Commandments cult drew many of its members from the Roman Catholic Church and incorporated some of the Catholicism's symbols and teachings into its tenets and traditions.
In another of the sect's chapels here, discarded green rosaries lay about the floor, and the smashed remnants of ceramic figures of Jesus and Mary littered the altar.
The group's leader, Mr. Kibwetere, had been a lay worker in a Roman Catholic parish in Bushenyi, just north of here, before breaking away and apparently bringing a number of his fellow congregants with him.
Bishop William Magambo, head of the Anglican Diocese in Bushenyi, said he knew of Mr. Kibwetere by reputation and his was not a good one. "Their leader was a rebel," Bishop Magambo said after he and several aides examined the grounds and the buildings.
For the trickle of loved ones who came to this remote spot in the Rukungiri region of southwestern Uganda, near the country's borders with Congo and Rwanda, there is confusion, anger and sadness.
Joy Turyomurugendo lost four brothers, two sisters, a host of nieces and nephews and her mother in the fire, and knows she could have been among them. Only she, another sister and their father remain.
"My mother was trying to convince me to come," Ms. Turyomurugendo, 43, said as she sat on a log in the middle of a clearing on the edge of the compound, "but I told her I can't go in this church."
She did not like what she heard about how the cult forced its members to sell their possessions to be admitted, how the leaders tried to control communication among followers and outsiders, and how parents were separated from children and spouses were split up inside its compound. "I told them not to come here, but they refused," she said.
So, while many of her relatives packed up their few remaining possessions and came here in July to live at the compound, she stayed away. "They would tell me that in the year 2000, they were going to a new world," she said.
She never had a chance to see them before they died, so today she came from her village, Kirima, about five miles away. "I just came to see how they are buried," she said.
On Monday, a huge ditch was dug and, with not even a spoken prayer, the charred, twisted remains were dumped into it and quickly covered with fresh earth. "There was really nothing more to do," Ms. Turyomurugendo said. "There were just so many of them."

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