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Five international aid agencies have urged foreign donors to release rapidly "substantial additional" funds already pledged to Burundi, after a successful transfer of presidential power on Wednesday.
The appeal by Agro Action Allemande, CARE, International Rescue Committee, Oxfam and Save the Children was made on Monday. In their joint statement, made available to IRIN on Wednesday, the aid agencies also called on the international community and Burundian parties to ensure that the transfer of the presidency from President Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, to Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu, was peaceful. They want the international community to support the government and provide money and men to ensure the timely deployment of the African Union (AU) ceasefire implementation force. The NGOs also implored all belligerent parties to respect the ceasefire.
Despite ceasefire accords signed by all but one of the four factions to the conflict in Burundi, fighting has intensified in the months leading to Wednesday's transfer of power. This, a Human Rights Watch official said, had spread gloom among the population.
"Burundians see this transition as a time of fear, not a time of hope," Alison Des Forges, senior adviser to the Africa Division of the NGO, said on Thursday. "Civilians still have no faith that they won't become the targets of unpredictable violence, either from the government or from the rebels."
An AU force of 3,500 is to deploy to Burundi. Some South African troops arrived this week. Ethiopia is to provide a battalion and two companies to the force and Mozambique one company.
Maj Gen Sipho Binda of South Africa is to command the peacekeeping force, to be known as the African Mission in Burundi, or AMIB. Its mandate is to oversee the implementation of ceasefire agreements; support disarmament and demobilisation initiatives and the reintegration of combatants; ensure favourable conditions for the establishment of a UN peacekeeping mission; and contribute to political and economic stability in Burundi.
The force is expected to remain in Burundi for an initial one-year period, to be renewed every six months, pending its replacement by a UN peacekeeping force.
The South African Protection Support Detachment and the African Union Military observers, already in Burundi, are to be incorporated into AMIB.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
