Bujumbura | Thursday
SOME 80 Burundian school children kidnapped this week by Hutu rebels are tired but in good health, one of their teachers who managed to escape the kidnappers said Wednesday.
“The children are in good shape, despite being physically tired from walking and carrying the goods the rebels pillaged,” the teacher told Radio Publique Africaine (RPA, African Public Radio) on arriving in Ruyigi, the capital of the eastern province of the same name.
“The rebels gave us food this morning on Rugongo hill, and during the night they gave the children covers,” the teacher added.
The school children, all boys aged between 11 and 16, and four of their teachers were kidnapped from the Kirambi II school in Ruyigi on Tuesday morning by members of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) Hutu rebel group.
The rebels said they were going to enlist the children as soldiers in their movement.
On Wednesday evening, government forces were still hunting for the rebels, army representative Colonel Augustin Nzabampema said.
The same rebel group, made up of “approximately 350 rebels from Tanzania”, according to Nzabampema, on Monday killed 11 people in an ambush in the town of Bweru in eastern Rwanda.
The incidents come after the installation on November 1 of a transitional power-sharing government in Burundi.
The new government, aimed at giving ethnic Hutus a greater share of power, is seen as key in the country’s long peace process, that aims to end eight years of civil war.
Hutu rebels did not sign the August 2000 accord that provided for the interim government and have yet to agree to a ceasefire.
Some 250 000 people, mostly civilians, have died in Burundi since Hutu rebels launched an insurgency in 1993. – AFP