The government imposed a nationwide curfew on Thursday as fighting between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-dominated army continued in the central African nation’s capital for the fourth day.
At least three civilians were killed on Thursday as rebels from the National Liberation Forces, or FNL, fired rockets and mortars into the capital and battled with army troops in Musaga, four kilometres south of the city centre.
Army commander General Gervais Niyoyankana said his troops had surrounded the rebels and sporadic fighting was taking place as the soldiers tried to force the insurgents from the city.
Niyoyankana refused to say how army troops or rebels have been killed in the fighting, which erupted on Monday when the rebels launched an attack on southern neighbourhoods of Bujumbura.
On Wednesday, the army said 24 rebels had been killed.
An unknown number of civilians have also been killed in the fighting and dozens of others injured and thousands forced to flee their homes.
A journalist reported seeing three bodies lying on the street in the centre of town on Thursday.
It was not possible to contact the rebels, and Information Minister Albert Mbonerane said that journalists who published or broadcast interviews with armed or unarmed opposition groups would be detained.
The curfew will be enforced from 9pm to 6am for an indefinite period, said Security Minister Salvator Ntihabose.
It’s the first time there has been nationwide curfew since 2001.
The civil war erupted in October 1993 after Tutsi paratroopers assassinated the country’s first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, a member of the Hutu majority.
At least 200 000 people, mostly civilians, have died in the conflict. Despite being in the minority, Tutsis have effectively controlled the tiny nation for all but a few months since independence in 1962.
A transitional administration took office on November 1 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 small rebel factions signed ceasefire agreements last October, but the main faction of the FNL, which operates in the hills surrounding Bujumbura, has refused to halt fighting.
The largest rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, signed a ceasefire in December, but has also continued fighting.
Despite the fighting, a South African-led African Union (AU) force has begun deploying in Burundi to monitor and help implement the ceasefire agreements. But the 900 troops already in Burundi have done nothing to stem the violence in the capital.
”We’re not involved [in the fighting]. It’s not our responsibility,” said Welile Nhlapo, deputy head of the AU mission.
”We would not let the situation slide into chaotic situation that we could not control.”
Asked what the force would do if the situation worsened, Nhlapo said he could not predict any future action.
”We’ll cross that bridge when we reach it,” he said.
The three-year transitional government entered its second and final phase on May 1 when Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, took over the presidency from Pierre Buyoya, a member of the Tutsi minority.
The main rebel factions said the transition would not affect their positions. – Sapa-AP