Diseases Killing 15 Each Day In Burundi Refugee Camps

Malaria, diarrhea and typhus are killing up to 15 people a day in camps where the military has rounded up civilians to keep them safe from attacks on Hutu rebels, a camp official said Thursday.

Lt. Gaspard Ndabambarire pleaded for help from aid organizations and the government to control illness in Ruhinga, 40 miles north of Bujumbura, where about 12,000 uprooted Rwandans live.

“Otherwise, these people are going to die,” he told independent Studio Ijambo. Five to 15 people are dying each day from malaria, diarrhea and typhus, he said.

Michel Hoffman, director of Doctors Without Borders of Holland, agreed many people were sick in camps across northern Burundi. He said his agency was providing medicine, “but typhus is developing in an alarming way.”

In Geneva, the United Nations estimated at least 200,000 people have been rounded up from their homes by the armed forces and resettled in camps in recent months. Burundian authorities insist this is for their safety.

At least 150,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in politically motivated ethnic violence in Burundi since 1993.