Ethnic Fighting Flares Anew In Burundi Hutu Rebels, Army Have Day-Long Shootout In Capital

The Burundian army and Hutu rebels clashed Wednesday in several parts of Burundi’s capital, but the army reportedly drove them out after a daylong battle.

Aid workers in Bujumbura said they were told to stay in their homes during what they called the fiercest fighting in months.

Radio Burundi said at least three people were killed, but a source speaking on condition of anonymity said four were dead and at least 24 wounded.

The government of Burundi, a tiny central African country bordering Rwanda, is largely made up of Hutus, but the army is controlled by Tutsis.

The two groups have been waging what diplomats call a low-level civil war for power since October 1993, when the first elected Hutu president was killed in a failed army coup. There are fears that ethnic violence could escalate into genocide similar to the killing in Rwanda last year of 500,000 people.

The president’s assassination led to an explosion of ethnic strife in which up to 100,000 were killed and tens of thousands fled the country. In the past two years, the army has clashed with extremists from the Hutu majority nearly every day.

Wednesday’s fighting broke out in the morning and continued into the evening, according to reports from Radio Burundi, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. Aid workers said the army was using armored personnel carriers and helicopters.

Burundi television said armed men infiltrated the eastern Mutanga quarter of Bujumbura and “were shooting at people on the street.” The ethnically mixed neighborhood is home to many of Burundi’s legislators and government officials.

Communications Minister Antoine Baza told Burundi Radio that the army intervened after rebels infiltrated the suburbs of Mutanga, Gihosha and Kanyosha. He said the troops were chasing the rebels into the hills.

“Calm has returned in the troubled areas, although gunfire is still heard in the hills overlooking Bujumbura,” the radio quoted Baza as saying.

Radio Burundi said the three deaths occurred when uniformed men attacked a bus carrying people from a Hutu neighborhood into the center of Bujumbura.