Hutu rebels attack market
2005-08-25 12:00
Bujumbura - Burundi's lone remaining Hutu rebel group attacked a market outside the capital, wounding several people as the war-ravaged country prepares for the inauguration of a new president, officials said on Thursday.
An unknown number of people were shot and wounded in the attack on Wednesday by the National Liberation Forces (FNL) on the market in Gitaza, about 30km south of Bujumbura, that sent others fleeing for their lives, they said.
"Several people were wounded and part of population is now displaced," said Ignace Ntawembarira, the governor of Bujumbura rural province, a main area of operation for the FNL where the attack took place.
"The rest of the province is relatively calm but we have made it known that there are very many military patrols," he said.
The army said it had substantially increased its operations in Bujumbura ahead of Friday's swearing-in of former Hutu rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza as Burundi's first post-transition president.
Bringing the situation under control
"Even if the FNL tries to disturb the inauguration, we are using all our means to (ensure security) and the situation would be under control very quickly," said army spokesperson Adolphe Manirakiza.
The FNL is the only one of Burundi's seven rebel groups not to have signed up to a regionally backed peace process under which Nkurunziza, leader of the ex-rebel Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), was elected president last week.
The group has continued to fight, mainly in western and southern Burundi, despite a nominal ceasefire and efforts to bring them into the peace process.
Nkurunziza's inauguration on Friday before a host of African leaders will mark the end of an extended transition period aimed at ending the country's 12-year ethnically driven civil war during which some 300 000 people have been killed.
The war erupted in 1993 after the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority, was assassinated by members of the Tutsi-dominated military.