Thousands need urgent humanitarian aid

At least 10,000 people in central and southwestern Burundi, who fled recent fighting between government and rebel forces, need urgent humanitarian aid, local officials said. The governor of Gitega, Tharcisse Ntibarirarana, told IRIN on Monday that some 7,000 families had so far gone home, but that the security and humanitarian situations remained precarious. "Even when people return to their homes, they won’t find anything there, because everything has been looted by rebels or by thieves," he said. People fled their homes on 29 October to escape the fighting between the army and the rebel Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie in Itaba Commune in the central province of Gitega. The Associated Press quoted a town official in Itaba, Pascal Kavuyimbo, as saying medicines and food stocks in the town had run out and that help was urgently needed for the people who had fled from the nearby villages of Rukobe, Ruhanza, Kagoma and Kanyonga. Ntibarirarana added that as of Monday "no humanitarian organisation" had delivered relief aid. "We normally rely on the World Food Programme [WFP]," he said, "but prior to bringing assistance, the WFP requires lists of the heads of families to receive assistance, but you cannot establish the lists of people who are running in all directions." He said although there were reports on Sunday that the fighting in the commune had stopped, the situation remained "unreliable, because rebels pass through the hills of Itaba when they retreat after attacks in the neighbouring commune of Bugendana". In a similar development, the administrator of the commune of Rumonge in southwestern Burundi, Maj Antoine Bashirahishiz, appealed on Monday for humanitarian aid for 5,000 people who had arrived there recently after fleeing fighting between the army and another rebel group - the Parti de liberation du peuple hutu–Forces nationale de liberation - in the neighbouring commune of Bugarama, Bujumbura Rural Province.