Hutu rebels attacked a military checkpoint near a primary school in eastern Burundi, killing two pupils, a teacher and four government soldiers, government and rebel officials said on Wednesday.
The pupils and the teacher were killed on Monday by a rocket-propelled-grenade fired by the rebels near Bake school in Butaganzwa, Ruyigi province, 175 kilometres east of Bujumbura, said Issac Bujaba, the province’s governor.
The soldiers were killed by a rebel ambush in the same area, he said.
A senior army officer in the region, who did not want to be named, confirmed that there was fighting in the area but said only two soldiers were killed in the ambush.
Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe, a representative for the rebel Forces for the Defence of Democracy, or FDD, said the two children and teacher were killed by accident.
The rebels killed 10 government soldiers and suffered no losses in the fighting, he said.
In the past, rebels have attacked schools to abduct children to use as fighters.
The FDD, which is the largest rebel faction fighting in the nie-and-a-half year war in Burundi, signed a cease-fire with the transitional government that was supposed to come into effect on December 31. But both the insurgents and the army accused each other of violating the agreement and fighting has continued.
The war in Burundi broke out in October 1993 after Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country’s first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu. Despite being in the minority, Tutsis have effectively controlled the central African nation for all but a few months since independence from Belgium in 1962.
More than 200 000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the conflict. The transitional government was inaugurated in November 2001 after Hutu and Tutsi political parties signed a power-sharing accord that was supposed to end the war. But the rebels did not take part in that peace process and fighting continued.
Two smaller rebel factions signed cease-fires in October, which appear to be holding. A fourth rebel group, the National Liberation Forces, or FNL, has refused to halt fighting, but last week held talks with government and military officials in Switzerland. – Sapa-AP