LUANDA, Angola — More than 100 people were feared dead Sunday after suspected UNITA rebels ambushed a refugee train in northwestern Angola, officials said.
The train carrying about 500 refugees fleeing fighting between the government and rebel forces hit a mine Friday, derailing and bursting into flames before coming under attack by gunmen.
The train was headed southeast from the capital of Luanda to the city of Dondo when the ambush occurred.
Officials said at least 93 people were killed and 146 were injured, but more bodies were believed trapped inside the smoldering wreckage, the radio station Ecclesia reported.
The dead were to be buried in a common grave being dug near the ambush site, the radio report said.
Most of the injured were taken to hospitals in Luanda, 80 miles away. State television Televisao Popular de Angola showed pictures of people with severe burns.
Two cars were carrying drums of gasoline that exploded, engulfing adjoining carriages in a fireball.
Ecclesia reported. Some of the carriages were still burning early Sunday. None of the small towns in the area has firefighting crews.
The army said in a statement the UNITA rebels were responsible for the attack, though it presented no evidence. The train had no army escort.
More than three million people — about a quarter of Angola's population — have been driven from their homes by fighting that has raged since Angola's 1975 independence from Portugal.
Small groups of UNITA guerrillas recently have been active in the area, staging hit-and-run attacks against military and civilian targets.
There are no independently confirmed figures for casualties in the war. Most of the fighting occurs in remote jungle areas.