AT LEAST 36 Burundi refugees, 15 of them women, have been killed in clashes with the Congolese military, a UN official said at the weekend.

UN envoy to the Democratic Republic of the Congo Maman Sidikou said he had received “credible reports” that troops fired indiscriminately at Burundians protesting at the expulsion of four of their countryfolk from the state following the killing of a Congolese soldier in circumstances that remain murky.

Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende said the government was investigating what had happened and the identity of the “supposed refugees,” saying they had opened fire on soldiers first and “we do not yet understand” how.

No-one with refugee status “is supposed to have an assault rifle,” he said.

About 44,000 Burundians are in the Congo having fled a crackdown by their President Pierre Nkurunziza, who won a third term under controversial circumstances in 2015.