Tens of thousands flee Burundi fighting
BUJUMBURA, Burundi (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in an outbreak of fighting between the army and rebels in Burundi in the past few days, aid workers and government officials in the central African nation said Wednesday.
Fighting between ethnic Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-led army broke out Friday around the central town of Gitega, uprooting about 40,000 people, according to U.N. officials.
"It is difficult to know the number of casualties but some civilians have been killed in the fighting," the governor of Gitega province, Tharcisse Ntibarirarana, told Reuters.
He said around 60,000 had fled the fighting, although aid workers had a lower estimate.
"A large number of people fled in Gitega province. We don't have the exact number, but we think around 40,000 people have been forced to flee the fighting since last weekend," said Nicholas McGowan, information officer at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the capital, Bujumbura.
Hutu rebels have been fighting the army in Burundi since 1993 in a war which has killed an estimated 300,000 people, mostly civilians. Hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.
Ntibarirarana said the fighting around Gitega pitted the army against the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), one of two main rebel groups in Burundi.
The FDD signed a peace agreement with the government in December, but fighting has continued. The FDD was not immediately available for comment.
01/22/03 12:14 ET
