Fresh attack on Bujumbura
2003-07-13 08:47
Bujumbura - Heavy gunfire and shell explosions rocked Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, again early on Sunday, as officials and witnesses said the city was coming under a fresh attack from the rebel National Liberation Forces.
The dawn attack, which followed almost a week of clashes in the city that have claimed an estimated 200 lives, began at around 03:00 in the posh eastern residential districts of Gatoke and Mutanga.
After bursts of sustained gunfire, the army began firing shells at the attackers, identifying them as FNL fighters.
"It is the FNL that is attacking the city of Bujumbura again," local government official Gilbert Burange said.
"We are lying on the ground. There are a lot of them," one resident said, also by phone.
"We can hear drums and they are singing religious songs. It's the FNL that is coming," added this resident, who identified herself only as Jeanne.
The FNL, drawn from the ethnic Hutu majority, has been fighting the government and its Tutsi dominated army since 1993.
Unlike other armed groups in the small central African state, it has so far refused to enter into talks for a negotiated settlement of the civil war, which has claimed more than 300 000 lives.
On Friday, fierce fighting took place in the southern rural district of Gikoto, as the army tried to push back the FNL fighters.
On Saturday, the bodies of 44 rebels, including two senior FNL commanders, were found in Gikoto.
Also Saturday, the army suggested the rebels had given up the fight.
"We are controlling the situation very well," he said: "If we look at the losses we inflicted on the rebels, we think that they will stay quiet for a while," said chief of staff General Germain Niyoyanakana.