Army says it killed 162 rebels in five days

Burundian troops have killed 162 rebels in five days of fighting in the provinces of Ruyigi and Bururi, army spokesman Col. Augustin Nzabampema told IRIN on Thursday. In this recent round of fighting, troops first made contact with rebels of the Front for the Defence of Democracy on Saturday in the east and south of the country. He said the rebels killed 13 civilians in Ruyigi, 25 in Bururi and wounded two civilians at each locale. Although Nzabampema would give no military casualties, AFP reported six killed on Monday in Munini, about 149 km southeast of the capital, Bujumbura. On Tuesday, rebels kidnapped four teachers (one of whom escaped) and 58 schoolchildren at Buruhukiro, Ruyigi province, whom they reportedly plan to press into their ranks. Their present whereabouts are unknown but Nzapampema said they must be in the province because the children, reportedly between 11 and 16 years, are unfit to undertake long marches. "The children are in good shape, despite being physically tired from walking and carrying the goods the rebels pillaged," AFP reported an escaped teacher as saying. The dissidents have stepped up their attacks since the 1 Nov. inauguration of a transitional government - shared almost equally between the minority Tutsi and majority Hutu peoples. Nzabampema said the rebels might have been motivated to increase their attacks because of their "disappointment at the inauguration of the power-sharing government". Other reasons, he said, were possibly rebel fear that the planned repatriation of Burundian refugees in Tanzania would deprive them of potential recruits. "The rebels have been recruiting mostly from refugees," he said. The Burundi government has on several occasions, he said, asked Tanzania to move the refugee camps farther away from the border. Humanitarian sources said the fighting had caused the displacement of at least 2,000 people.