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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

BURUNDI: Curfew imposed on five zones in Bujumbura

BUJUMBURA, 19 September 2003 (IRIN) - The Burundian government on Wednesday imposed a curfew on five zones on the outskirts of the capital, Bujumbura, as a security measure for better control of people's movements in the suburbs, Interior Minister Salvator Ntihabose said on Friday.

Residents of Kinama, Buterere, Kamenge, Kanyosha and Kibenga Rural must remain indoors during the daily 7:00pm-5:00am curfew.

"It is one in a series of preventive measures for a better control of people’s movements," Ntihabose said.

The curfew follows renewed fighting between two rebel groups in the western Bujumbura Rural province.

The fighting began on 6 September between Pierre Nkurunziza's faction of the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) and Agathon Rwasa's faction of the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), mainly in the provinces of Bujumbura Rural and Bubanza.

Fighting between the two rebel groups resumed on Wednesday in Mubimbi and Rugazi communes in Bujumbura Rural, causing the displacement of thousands of civilians.

Ntihabose said that since Mubimbi and Rugazi were close to Bujumbura, it was feared that the rebels could use the city's outskirts as hiding places and consequently transform them into battlefields, hence the curfew in the five zones.

The chief of the northern suburb of Kinama, Jean Berchmans Nsabimana, told IRIN on Friday that five people were killed last week in the area during a manhunt between CNDD-FDD and FNL combatants. He said tension was still high between the two groups.

The latest displacement of civilians, as a result of the rebel fighting, occurred in the neighbouring Muramyva Province, where local administration officials said some 2,800 people had fled their homes to seek refuge at Bugarama in Bujumbura Rural. These are in addition to at least 10,000 others who have been displaced from their homes in the commune of Mubimbi in Bujumbura Rural.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs

[ENDS]

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