Ugandan police said yesterday the final death toll from a doomsday cult massacre and mass suicide earlier this year was 780.

Hundreds of members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments were burnt alive in a church in Kanungu, western Uganda, in March.

Police believe cult leaders systematically killed another 400 of their followers after a prediction that the world would end at the start of 2000 failed to come true.

"According to police pathologists, 780 people died not only in the church but in the other graves we unearthed around the country," police spokesman said.

(China Daily 2000/07/21)