Six abducted humanitarian workers released

Six humanitarian workers of the Dutch-Burundian relief organisation Memisa-Coped abducted on 11 May by the Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD) were released today, according to AFP. The six arrived in the southeastern Kayogoro area region safe but in poor condition, “because they were forced to walk great distances”, a Memisa-Coped official told AFP.

The six NGO workers were abducted near Bukeye, in Makamba Province, while travelling to treat people displaced by the civil war. According to eyewitnesses, they were taken towards Nyamugari village in Tanzania. Their vehicle was later found in Makamba Province, about two kilometres from the Burundi/Tanzania border.

The six - five health workers and their driver - have been identified by the Azania news agency as four women - Henriette Ntishimirwa, Immaculee Gahimbare, Jeanne Inarukundo, Gaudence Nifasha - and two men - Sebastien Karenzo and Ayubu Radjabu.

No information was yet available regarding two youths from Kibago village who were also kidnapped.

The FDD, one of two main ethnic Hutu rebel groups fighting the country’s Tutsi-led army and government, refused to sign a peace accord in Arusha, Tanzania last year. The FDD has recently stepped up attacks in Burundi, where civil war has raged since 1993 when Tutsi soldiers assassinated the Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, and has claimed some 200,000 lives, most of them civilians.

The FDD is believed to have bases in the Burundian refugee camps sited just across the border in Tanzania. Burundi President Pierre Buyoya has claimed that Tanzania is allowing rebels to use its territory as a springboard for attacks inside Burundi, a claim the Tanzanian government has denied.