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/ 15 January 2004
At 24, a single mother, Marie — not her real name — could have expected a better deal in life. But she was given no choice: while working as a housemaid in Kinindo, a residential suburb of the capital, Bujumbura, Marie was raped and subsequently found herself pregnant. Marie would not have dreamed of seeking an abortion, not least because it is prohibited here.
Former rebel movement Conseil National pour la Defense de la Democratie-Forces pour la Defense de la Democratie (CNDD-FDD) appealed on Monday to the Burundian army and the Forces Nationales de Liberation (FNL) rebel faction led by Agathon Rwasa to stop using landmines.
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/ 16 December 2003
Representatives of the Batwa or pygmy people from four countries in the Great Lakes region of Africa have asked their governments to urgently seek ways of guaranteeing their people’s greater access to land and education. Participants in the Bujumbura conference are drawn from Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.
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/ 2 December 2003
Two members of Burundi’s largest former rebel movement, who were recently appointed ministers, arrived on Sunday in the capital, Bujumbura, after several years in exile. ”This is an indication that peace is coming in Burundi,” they told reporters in Bujumbura.
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/ 24 November 2003
Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye reshuffled his Cabinet on Sunday to incorporate the country’s largest rebel faction, the Conseil National pour la Defense de la Democratie-Forces Nationales pour la Defense de la Democratie, led by Pierre Nkurunziza. Ndayizeye named Nkurunziza as Minister of State for Good Governance.
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/ 10 November 2003
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.
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/ 15 October 2003
Rebels rampaging in the strife-torn central African state of Burundi have decapitated a local government official, a provincial governor said on Tuesday. News of the attack came as the Burundi army accused the main Hutu rebel movement in Burundi of failing to respect a ceasefire.
Four civilians and four soldiers have been killed during an overnight clash in central Burundi blamed on Hutu rebels. The unrest is the first blamed on Forces for the Defence of Democracy rebels since its leader and Burundi President Domitien Ndayizeye agreed to a ceasefire on Tuesday in South Africa.
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/ 8 September 2003
Burundi’s two Hutu rebel movements are engaged in clashes near the capital of the tiny Central African country. The army confirmed that the National Liberation Forces prevailed in the fighting over the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, the first between the two rebel groups since 1996.
The Burundi government and rebels from the war-torn central African state’s main Hutu rebel movement are to resume talks Tuesday on an eight-month-old ceasefire deal which exists only on paper.
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 two civilians were killed on Thursday after Hutu rebels in Burundi launched a ferocious attack on the capital Bujumbura, as their offensive on the city entered a fourth day, local officials said.
At least 28 people, including 17 rebels, were killed on Monday when the second biggest Hutu rebel group in Burundi, the National Liberation Forces, mounted a major attack on the nation’s capital, Bujumbura.
Burundi’s second largest Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces, has vowed to never negotiate with the government and to wage war without mercy.
As some of Burundi’s Hutu leaders prepare to take up their seats in a government set up by the newly-installed Hutu president, others are still, after a decade of bloodshed, engaged in hostilities with the Tutsi-led army.
Ten years into an ethnic civil war that has claimed 300 000 lives, Burundi is set for a political turning point this Wednesday, when Tutsi President Pierre Buyoya hands over power to his Hutu deputy, Domitien Ndayizeye.
Troops forming the first ever African Union (AU) peacekeeping force began arriving in the Burundian capital charged with strengthening a fragile ceasefire in the war-ravaged country.
A truth and reconciliation committee is to be set up next month in war-ravaged Burundi and will look into crimes committed since independence in 1962, parliament decided almost unanimously late on Wednesday.
Mortar shell explosions reverberated for several hours on Thursday near Burundi’s capital, prompting thousands of residents to flee their homes, officials said, accusing Hutu rebels of mounting an attack.
The leader of Burundi’s main Hutu political party went on air on Saturday to dispel panic-triggering rumours that he had been assassinated. ”I am alive. Nothing has happened. This story of an assassination is a rumour put about by troublemakers,” said Jean Minani, president of the Democratic Front (Frodebu).
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.
Fighting has broken out near Burundi’s capital, where several soldiers were killed by rebels, local officials and rebel sources said on Saturday as the president flew out for a peace parley.
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/ 16 January 2003
A protest on Thursday in the Burundi capital against the presence of South African troops in the country was broken up by security forces, who said the demonstrators were members of a banned paramilitary group.
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/ 23 December 2002
The Burundian army on Monday rejected allegations by Kinshasa that had deployed its forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo).
At least three civilians and six soldiers were killed in Burundi this week when rebels attacked a bar near the capital, witnesses said on Wednesday.
South Africa has agreed to extend the deployment of its protection force in Burundi by six months, a representative for the South Africa National Defence Force (SANDF) said on Saturday.
The Burundi army said this week it regretted the massacre of 173 mainly civilians in the war-torn central African state this month, but regarded the matter as an isolated incident.
Rebels killed eight passengers travelling in a minibus in Burundi. Three others died later.
THE most active wing of Burundian rebel group the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) on Monday rejected the mediation of South African Vice President Jacob Zuma.
Burundi’s main rebel group said on Monday it would not turn up for the resumption of ceasefire talks with the government on Tuesday in Tanzania, saying it had not been officially invited.
Burundi’s government has rejected teachers’ demands for better pay and conditions and warned they would face the full force of the law if they did not immediately end strike action.
Twelve people were sentenced to death in Burundi on Thursday for ”massacres, murders and pillage” committed in 1993 at the start of the civil war, the justice ministry said.