Peacekeepers to arrive before 1 May

An African Union (AU) peacekeeping force will be deployed in Burundi before 1 May, Maj-Gen Sipho Binda, the South African commander of the African Mission in Burundi (AMIB), told IRIN on Wednesday. "The troops will be here before 1 May," Binda said on arriving in Bujumbura with a 50-strong planning team. He is to spend a week in the country assessing the situation. The AU is providing 3,500 peacekeeping troops from Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa under a peace agreement to try to end the civil war which began in 1993. Under a power-sharing agreement, the current Burundian president, Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, is due to hand over office on 1 May to his vice-president, Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu. Binda said the mandate of the peacekeepers was to: "assist the Burundian people, especially the security forces, to come together ... in the process there will be demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration of the security forces so that there is one national defence force and police force." News agencies said the deployment of the peacekeepers comes at a time when a ceasefire between government forces and the main Hutu rebel group has shown little sign of holding.