Some 67 dead in Burundi ahead of Mandela visit
Some 67 dead in Burundi ahead of Mandela visit
BUJUMBARA (AFP): At least 67 people have died as fighting between Burundi's army and rebels flared only days before chief peace mediator Nelson Mandela is due to visit the country in the latest bid to end seven years of civil war.
Rebels intensified their attacks on Tuesday, firing their guns towards houses from a hill overlooking a suburb in the south of capital Bujumbara, though without causing any injuries.
A minibus was also ambushed and its passengers mugged some 15 kilometers from the capital, leaving one passenger with a bullet wound.
"The security situation is precarious these days in Bujumbara- Rural (Province)," army spokesman Col. Longin Minani said on national radio Tuesday.
"With each visit by a personality or major event in the capital, the genocide-minded terrorists try to make people talk about them and get themselves a bit of publicity," he added.
Former South African president Mandela, now chief mediator in the peace process aimed at bringing an end to the civil war between Hutu rebels and Tutsi authorities, is due to visit Burundi on Friday.
His imminent arrival appears to have sparked a fresh round of blood-letting in a conflict that has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives since 1993.
On Sunday, at least seven people were killed in a rebel ambush 15 kilometers northeast of Bujumbara. Minani later confirmed that the assailants "selectively killed the Tutsis."
But the worst outbreak of violence was reserved for the southern Makamba province, on the frontier with Tanzania, where according to Minani rebels forces "suffered heavy losses, especially in the Nyanza-Lac district, with around 40 killed, 28 injured and 20 firearms recovered."
The Burundian defense ministry confirmed Tuesday that rebels had carried out a massacre Sunday of 16 refugees at a camp in Mabanda and three more in the camp at Muyange in the southern Nyanza-Lac district.
One further victim has reportedly died in his hospital bed after failing to recover from numerous wounds.
Heavy gunfire was also heard Sunday night in the vicinity of eastern Bujumbura, while the sounds of crossfire in Bujumbura- Rural Province were audible on several occasions in the capital over the weekend.
A number of aid organizations have suspended their work in the province as a result of the fighting, humanitarian sources announced.
Col. Minani nevertheless insisted that the government would guarantee "safety on main roads and in the refugee camps, and encourage collaboration between the forces of order and the people, whatever their ethnicity."