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Burundi rebels kill 32
10/07/2003 20:47 - (SA)
Bujumbura - Rocket attacks on Thursday by diehard Hutu rebels left at least two civilians dead in Bujumbura as army forces reportedly killed 30 members of the National Liberation Forces (FNL) assailing the Burundi capital.
As the rebel assault entered a fourth day, Bujumbura was rocked with sustained shooting, mortar fire and grenade explosions most of the morning after a night of calm.
Local officials said a customer in an open air bar was killed and another was seriously injured when rockets slammed into the centre of the capital early on Thursday. A second civilian was killed in a mortar attack on his office.
For its part, the army said it killed about 30 FNL rebels in a "massive" dawn offensive in Musaga, a southern district of Bujumbura.
"A column of the FNL arrived in reinforcement with materiel, but the army intercepted it and they suffered a lot of losses. But part of it was able to link up with the group holed up in a section of Musaga," General Niyoyankana told AFP.
An officer accompanying the general said army forces had killed about 30 rebels in a column of about 200 men, a claim that could not be independently confirmed.
Interim regime
By the end of the afternoon army forces had repelled the rebels outside city limits, army sources said.
Three rebel groups signed a ceasefire agreement in December, but the FNL has steadfastly refused to hold talks with the government, even under President Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, who took over as president from Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, in April for the second 18 months of an interim power-sharing regime.
Hutu rebels have battled the army, dominated by the rival Tutsi ethnic group, since 1993, in a war that has killed at least 300 000 people in the small central African country.
Last week, the FNL threatened to "wage war without mercy" until Ndayizeye steps down, dismissing an appeal by the president to come to the negotiating table.
It said a decision by Ndayizeye to bolster the armed forces' defence capabilities amounted to a declaration of war.
Curfew hours were extended, to begin at 21:00 instead of midnight, "in view of the deterioration of security," state radio announced as the death toll in fighting since Monday surpassed 60, according to an AFP tally based on unconfirmed reports.
More than 80 civilians wounded in the fighting were still in hospital on Thursday, an international Red Cross official told AFP.
Makeshift camp
Some 3 300 people who fled fighting in the south of the capital are sheltering in a makeshift camp in a western district, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which is supplying them with tinned food, flour and blankets.
Others are roaming other parts of the capital, an AFP reporter said.
France, meanwhile, on Thursday voiced concern over the escalation of fighting in Burundi, a former Belgian colony.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Herve Ladsous called on the warring parties to "show restraint and, in the shortest possible order, consider a truce to allow the launching of indispensable political dialogue without which there cannot be lasting peace in Burundi."
The army and the government have accused the FNL of teaming up with Burundi's largest Hutu rebel group, the Forces for Defence and Deomocracy (FDD).
However the FDD - which was one of three rebel groups to sign the ceasefire pact - has denied the charges, saying it does not share the rival group's objectives.
- AFX
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