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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
BURUNDI: Feature: Civilians losing the war
RUYIGI, 14 May 2003 (IRIN) - As evening falls, and the hills that loom over the town disappear with the last of the evening light, an unusual scene begins to unfold in Ruyigi, a provincial town trapped in one of the most violent corners of Burundi's bloody civil war.
Farmers - mostly the women with their children and older men - herd their remaining cattle and goats into town. Others come down from the hills, carrying the odd chicken and a few belongings for the night. They head for the office of the administrator of the commune, where they settle down for the night in the conference room. Waking at first light, they return to the hills so their animals can graze.
They say that unless they leave the hills at night, hungry rebels will attack, rob them of all their property and sometimes rape the women, so they have no choice but to seek refuge in town.
For many aid workers, this daily sight is symbolic of Burundi's war. Civilians have increasingly become the targets of attacks by military groups - be they government or rebel - forcing them to be constantly on the move in search of safety. Because of the lack of implementation of a 3 December 2002 ceasefire agreement between the government and rebel groups, it has been difficult for aid agencies to provide people in the conflict zones with the assistance they need.
Pillage
"What they didn't take the first time, they stole the second time they struck," Francois Ndimana, an elderly man who sought refuge in the packed conference room, told IRIN. "They stole everything - our chickens, cows and goats, even our cooking utensils.
"Then they chased us out of our houses and we fled to the bush, but it was cold and the children started getting ill, so we came into town with some of the other people who were bringing the last of their animals," he said.
One of the reasons for the increasingly vicious cycle of violence was the failure so far of the December ceasefire agreement, one aid worker suggested. "If the African Union force had come straight away and the food set aside to feed the rebels had been distributed, the deal would have held. It did, for a few weeks, but the rebels just had to eat and it all started again."
According to Action Contre la Faim (ACF), an organisation overseeing emergency food distribution and nutrition programmes in Burundi, the impact of these displacements will mount as, in the short term, fleeing farmers will try and sell their produce, even at very poor prices, but in the long term, those who leave will have no way of harvesting what they have been preparing over the year.
The head of the ACF mission in Burundi, Mohamed Mechmache, told IRIN that fewer people had been coming forward for food distribution since February 2003, something he found strange, given the insecurity.
"If the security situation was better, there would be fewer, but we are also waiting to see how this year's harvest goes," Mechmache said. "If there isn't enough rain in May, there could be more problems."
Lack of access
The fighting has meant that aid organisations were not able to reach the war-affected population. Nyabitsinda commune, for example, has traditionally been a rebel stronghold. The local army commander in Ruyigi admitted the commune was out of their control.
In fact, Nyabitsinda has become somewhat of an enigma to those in Ruyigi.
The army spoke of an "unknown, but considerable" build-up of FDD rebels within the commune; aid organisations haven't been allowed to go in for about four months and the provincial medical officer warned of a lack of food and its potentially "dramatic" consequences on the population.
In a recent Burundi brief, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) highlighted the restrictions it faced in delivering assistance because of insecurity, but also noted constraints caused "by lack of government clearance." WFP said it had already cancelled 109 missions and distributions in 2003, more than it cancelled throughout the whole of 2002.
The impact of the lack of access on people's well-being was exposed by a recent survey on the prevalence of disabilities, carried out by the NGO International Rescue Committee (IRC). It highlighted the fact that primary health care in the country had deteriorated so badly that war-related injuries were not the primary reason for disability.
According to IRC, services were so poor that minor, treatable injuries were often not attended to in time. The survey found that illness and disease were the leading cause for amputations in Burundi.
Rape emerging as a weapon
Human rights violations have been widespread during Burundi's civil war. Both the rebels and the government forces have been known to attack civilians, accusing them of betraying their positions or supporting the other side. Being on the frontline, Ruyigi is a region where many of the abuses have been perpetrated.
According to Isaac Bujaba, the governor of Ruyigi, rape has emerged as a previously un-discussed weapon, alongside the killings. "Rape has existed in these communities, but people are traditional here, and never before has it been talked about like this," he said, adding his concern that international organisations weren't reacting to his warnings of the seriousness of the problem.
Since February 2003, there have been 14 reported cases of rape in Ruyigi. But Bujaba believed that this figure only represented a small proportion of the actual number of attacks, and that it pointed to rape being planned and used by the rebels as a weapon. In some of the cases the victims were robbed, warned of a future attack and then raped.
"They robbed us on the Wednesday and then on Friday they came again, robbed some people and then they threatened to rape me," Melanie, one of the few women to have spoken about the attacks, said. "I tried to put them off by telling them that I was HIV positive, but they said that didn't matter and they brought people whom they said were also HIV positive."
Melanie was one of eight women who were raped during the attack, but she considered herself one of the lucky ones - she said "only" three rebels had raped her while another woman was raped by 10 men. The youngest in the group of victims was 13.
Complete ceasefire the only solution
As more women came forward to report rape attacks, a rape committee was set up in Ruyigi to support the victims. Activists working in the area said that justice was almost non-existent and rape was only part of a wider web of human rights violations that civilians were caught up in.
"There is always talk of killings and reprisals - it is just that nothing is proven out here," Pascal Nzibonera, the regional observer for Iteka, a Burundian human rights organisation, told IRIN. "We vote severe laws, but they are a waste of time as nothing really happens. It seems the interior has been completely forgotten."
"Whether you are a Hutu or a Tutsi, it is the same misery. All we ask for is some peace," said the elderly Ndimana, who had arrived for yet another night at the conference room in Ruyigi town.
Themes: (IRIN) Conflict
[ENDS]
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