Aid worker killed in rebel ambush

An aid worker was killed and two others seriously wounded when a group of rebels fired shots at the vehicle they were travelling in on Saturday at around midday on the road between the central town of Gitega and Ruyigi in the east.

The dead person worked for a nongovernmental organisation for water and sanitation project run by the United Nations Children's Fund, an official from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told IRIN on Monday.

One of the two wounded, Charles Gatoto, is the head of OCHA's inter-agency office in Ruyigi. "He had a bullet lodged near his neck. Both are at the hospital in the capital, Bujumbura," the official said.

Rebels had stepped up attacks in various parts of Burundi in the recent past, news organisations reported last week. Three children and a district chief were killed and nine civilians seriously wounded in a series of rebel attacks and ambushes in eastern and central Burundi recently, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, some 12 rebels were killed when two rebel factions clashed in Kibira forest in central Burundi, AFP quoted a government official as saying at the weekend. "Twelve bodies of rebels from the Forces for the Defence of Democracy [FDD] were found on Wednesday on the outskirts of the forest," AFP quoted the provincial administrator, Elie Niyonzima, as saying.

However, the leader of the FDD, Pierre Nkurunziza, denied that there had been confrontations among his group. "We caught 11 thieves who were passing as members of our movement - they got what they deserved," he told AFP.