Four people were killed and seven wounded on Sunday in a village outside the capital of war-torn central African country of Burundi after having been detained by army troops, witnesses said.
All the victims were civilians, witnesses said, but the authorities suggested they were members of one of the largest rebel groups still opposed to the government in a 10-year civil war that has killed more than 300 000.
”Soldiers came to the village of Kwigere early this morning and took a group of men with them and we later found four bodies and seven people injured,” said one witness, who asked not to be named.
Three other inhabitants of the village 30km east of the capital confirmed the account.
The authorities said they were aware of the incident, but did not yet know all the details, while no military officials could be reached for comment.
The governor of the Bujumbura rural region, Ignace Ntawembarira, said the incident apparently happened as an army patrol chased FNL rebels.
”I’ve been told they had an engagement and four people were killed and a certain number wounded, but I don’t know the details yet,” he said.
”We don’t know what happened exactly, but the residents accuse the military of systematically killing civilians even if they happen to be rebels,” said Daniel Ndirahisha, administrator for the town of Isale, which includes Kwigere.
The National Liberation Front (FNL), is the major rebel group which has yet to join the country’s peace process, and is active in the west of the country near the capital where the population is almost exclusively Hutu.
A FNL spokesperson accused the military Sunday of burning hundreds of homes in eight villages outside of the capital, but Ntawembarira said there was no large-scale fighting in the area and he had reports of only several homes being burned.
The main rebel group, the Front for Defence of Democracy (FDD), earlier this month initialled a peace deal and will join the transition government. – AFP
