Troops and rebels clash in Burundi

A gun battle between Burundi’s last rebel group and soldiers broke out today on the outskirts of the capital, with gunfire echoing in the city and apparently putting an end to a ceasefire agreement reached earlier this month.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in what an army spokesman called an attack on Bujumbura at 11.30am (10.30am Irish time) from the south-west. The rebels were turned back, he added.

“The army tried to stop a group of rebels coming from the hills,” said Adolphe Mairakiza, the army spokesman. He said the army was also pursuing another group of rebels north-east of the capital.

A rebel spokesman said the attack was in retaliation for operations by the army.

“The army declared war on us, so we are fighting a war,” rebel spokesman Pasteur Habimana said.

Yesterday, the Burundian army said it would launch attacks against the National Liberation Front following a mortar bombardment of the capital that left three soldiers and two civilians wounded on Wednesday night.

Known by its French acronym, the FNL is the only rebel group that has not joined Burundi’s power-sharing government. FNL leader Agathon Rwasa and President Domitien Ndayizeye signed a ceasefire agreement on May 15, which many had hoped would end the Central African country’s civil war.

Burundi’s civil war broke out in 1993 when Tutsi paratroopers killed the country’s first democratically held president, a Hutu. Leaders of the Hutu majority formed several rebel groups and fought the Tutsi-dominated army, leaving more than 250,000 people, mostly civilians, dead.

The United Nations has called for both sides to respect the May 15 ceasefire.