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DATE=10/15/1999
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=BURUNDI / U-N AID L-ONLY
NUMBER=2-255074
BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN
DATELINE=GENEVA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: United Nations aid agencies are expressing 
grief and outrage at the murder of two U-N aid workers 
in Burundi earlier this week.  Lisa Schlein in Geneva 
reports that all United Nations agencies have now 
suspended their humanitarian operations in Burundi for 
an unspecified period of time.
TEXT:  On Tuesday, two staff members from UNICEF, the 
U-N Children's Fund, and the World Food Program, were 
shot dead in Burundi while on a mission to assess 
humanitarian needs.  The night before, a U-N aid 
worker from Bulgaria was brutally murdered in Kosovo.  
Spokesman for the U-N Refugee Agency, Kris Janowski, 
calls this one of the darkest weeks in the U-N's 
history.
            /// JANOWSKI ACT ///
      According to an account by our colleague who was 
      there in Burundi as it happened, it was pretty 
      much a point blank murder.  And it was probably 
      one of the most chilling accounts of this kind 
      of killing that I've read in my life. 
            /// END ACT ///
The refugee agency and other United Nations agencies 
in Burundi have cut back their work outside the 
capital, Bujumbura.  Its international, as well as 
most local employees, have returned to Bujumbura from 
three field offices.  The refugee agency says 23 aid 
workers will be moved to Nairobi, Kenya, until it is 
considered safe enough for them to return.
United Nations figures show that last year, for the 
first time in U-N history, the deaths of civilian 
relief workers outnumbered those of military 
peacekeepers.  Between 1992 and 1998, 173 U-N 
employees were killed in the line of duty.
The World Food Program's Christiane Berthiaume says 
the W-F-P lost 50 aid workers since 1988 in murders or 
work-related accidents or illnesses. She says this is 
more than any other U-N agency.
            /// BERTHIAUME ACT ///
      This is outrageous.  This is incredible.  These 
      things cannot go on.  We're faced with the same 
      dilemma.  On one side, we have in Burundi 800-
      thousand people who do need the food that we're 
      bringing to them.  But, on the other side, we 
      cannot tolerate that our people get killed.
            /// END ACT ///
The World Food Program has more than five-thousand 
staff members in emergency operations in countries 
with civil conflicts or major refugee crises.  They 
are joined by many thousands of other relief workers 
from dozens of U-N and private agencies.
The United Nations says every time an aid worker is 
deliberately hurt or murdered, humanitarian operations 
all over the world are affected.  And millions of 
people in need of aid suffer the consequences. 
(Signed)
NEB/LS/GE/JO
15-Oct-1999 10:37 AM EDT (15-Oct-1999 1437 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
.