Thousands more flee as Burundi fighting kills five
BUJUMBURA (AFP) — Thousands more civilians have fled their homes in Burundi after fighting which claimed the lives of four rebels and a soldier, whose head was cut off and put on display Friday, several sources said.
A battle broke out late on Thursday afternoon between government troops and rebel National Liberation Forces (FNL) on a hill 10 miles (six kilometres) out from the capital Bujumbura.
"One soldier was killed then decapitated by the rebels, with his head left this morning near a military position," local government official Leon Karaziritse told AFP.
More than 700 households (around 3,500 people) are now in the care of authorities, awaiting food and other emergency supplies in this small east-central African country which neighbours Rwanda, he added.
"They have had nothing to eat since yesterday (Thursday)," he said.
Army spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Adolphe Manirakiza confirmed the "shoot-out" to AFP, saying the FNL "ambushed" a patrol.
Earlier four rebels had been killed in fighting overnight Wednesday to Thursday.
It is the latest in a series of recent clashes which government officials say has left 7,000 households (35,000 people) displaced in total.
Three years after a civil war that claimed 300,000 lives in the small central African country, the FNL signed a second peace deal with newly elected authorities in September 2006, but it has yet to be implemented.
Burundi is still struggling to recover from the civil war that began in 1993, mainly pitting rebels from the Hutu majority population against the Tutsi minority, which then dominated the army.
A power-sharing government was formed in 2001, while conflict was still taking place, and South Africa mediated among the different sides, until almost all the rebel groups agreed to a ceasefire.
