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Eleven people, including the only senator from the minority Twa community, were killed on Wednesday when rebels ambushed two minivans near Bujumbura, the Burundi capital, a local journalist told to IRIN on Friday.
The National Assembly had confirmed the death of Senator Jean-Bosco Rutagengwa, AFP reported. It is believed that Rutagengwa, a Twa, was not specifically targeted. The Twa, or pygmy, ethnic group represents 1 percent of Burundi's 6.5 million inhabitants. The Twa are believed to have been the first settlers in the region, preceding successive migrations of Hutu farmers and Tutsi herders.
Eight other civilians and two government soldiers were among the dead, and an additional six civilians were seriously wounded in the incident at Gasozo, 17 km east of the capital, on Route Nationale 1. The highway has come to be known as "the Road of Death", the news agency reported. In the nine years of Burundi's civil war, more than 100 civilians have been killed along the this road.
Military officials blamed the ambush on the Forces nationales pour la liberation (FNL), known to operate in Bujumbura Rurale, the province that surrounds the capital. "The FNL rebels are losing the war in Bujumbura Rurale," an army officer told AFP on Thursday.
"The army has lost dozens of soldiers there, but rebel losses are 20 times as high," he added.
A rebel official told AFP this, noting, "not only have the rebels lost many fighters, but the FNL is now divided, which weakens us a little more".
Burundi's civil war, which broke out when Tutsi soldiers assassinated President Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, has cost an estimated 200,000 lives since 1993 and caused hundreds of thousands more to flee their homes. Despite a peace accord signed in August 2000 and the establishment of a transitional government in November 2001, rebels have stepped up attacks in various parts of the country, resulting in the displacement of thousands. Efforts to reach a ceasefire have thus far been unsuccessful.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
