Diseases rife in cantonment camps

Hundreds of combatants from various former rebel groups who are cantoned at Bulamata Camp in Burundi's northwestern Bubanza Province are suffering from malaria and diarrhoea and have limited access to medical care, medical officials said on Wednesday. Some 700 combatants at Bulamata live in squalor, the provincial health director in Bubanza, Canésius Havyarimanan, told IRIN. Bubanza Hospital had treated combatants for four months without getting paid, Havyarimanan said, but it is now only treating those with life-threatening diseases. "Even then we do not know who will pay the bill," he said. Leaders of five former rebel movements denounced the poor living conditions of their combatants at a joint news conference on Wednesday. The transitional government has failed to honour its pledges, said Nyabenda Déogratias of the former rebel movement, Palipe-Agakiza. Meanwhile, 50 cases of cholera have been registered in the southern town of Rumonge, a Rumonge Hospital official, Dr Irambona Frederic, told IRIN on Wednesday. Rumonge Hospital is registering eight or nine cases a day, Irambona said. Most of the sick are residents of the Iteba and Swahili neighborhoods in Rumonge town, where they are compelled to drink contaminated water.