LUXEMBOURG - Emma Bonino, the European Union commissioner responsible for humanitarian aid, accused rebel forces in Zaire on Tuesday of a deliberate drive to wipe out refugees believed to have taken part in genocide in Rwanda. "There can be little doubt that human rights abuses are being perpetrated against refugees," Bonino told a news conference after briefing EU foreign ministers on the situation in Africa's Great Lakes region. "I strongly believe that this is the result of a deliberate strategy to get rid of these people." In a statement, EU foreign ministers urged rebel leader Laurent Kabila to honour an undertaking to allow repatriation of the refugees whether by plane, rail or road. "It expects that this undertaking will be implemented through concrete measures," the statement said. The EU was "increasingly alarmed at the situation and urged all parties to avoid any further violence and bloodshed". The ministers met after the U.N. refugee agency said in Geneva it had "increasingly shocking reports" of

killings of refugees around Kisangani and other areas of eastern Zaire held by the rebels of Laurent Kabila and demanded a full investigation. The rebels, fighting since October, control over half of Zaire, Africa's third-largest nation at the continent's heart. Bonino said that while many refugees had been airlifted from the central African country, they were few compared to the "hundreds of thousands" who were being used as a "military target" in Zaire. The rebels have been accused of driving the Hutu refugees into the jungle in the hope that they will die there. Kabila has given aid agencies 60 days to repatriate them to Rwanda.