MSF-Belgium reaches Rushubi

Medecins Sans Frontieres-Belgium (MSF-B) on Thursday managed to reach Rushubi town, Bujumbura Rural, western Burundi, which was rendered inaccessible on Monday afternoon after the Burundian army embarked on an operation to flush out rebels in the area, MSF-B Head of Mission Stephan Goetghebuer told IRIN on Thursday.

"Our team evacuated seven people who were wounded to hospital. The situation is virtually quiet," he said.

A small assessment conducted by the MSF-B team in the area on Thursday noted that the number of 4,800 families reported as displaced was "a possibility", he said. They also observed that the general health of the people looked fine and that they had access to free health care offered by nongovernmental organisations.

"They reported, however, two suspected cholera cases," he said, adding that the team had said the hygiene situation in the sites was poor. The team had also noted lack of some non-food items.
Most of the people were staying with other families or in schools, he said.

A coordination meeting organised by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is scheduled to take place on Friday to enable humanitarian agencies to decide on the next course of action.

The MSF-B team was last in Rushubi on Monday afternoon, when the situation got "pretty tense" and it had to leave, Goetghebuer said.

"By then, there were six people wounded whom we managed to take to hospital. We received news that one of them died, unfortunately. Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday we were trying to access the area and assist without success," he said.

The Burundi army spokesman, Col Augustin Nzabampema, said on Wednesday that 29 rebels had been killed in an army operation which was now in its fourth week in Bujumbura Rural. "The operations started at Kabezi and have been going on for three days in Isale commune in an area called Kibuye. The operations are being carried out to our entire satisfaction," Burundi radio quoted Nzabampema as saying.

"From the start, each time fighting is to take place in an area, we ask residents to leave the area - the zones of fighting - so as to avoid being victims," he explained. "In this respect, I would like to categorically deny the allegations being made by some radios which say that to date 56 civilians have been killed," he said.

"To our knowledge, we can openly say that in the zones of fighting there were no civilians, because when residents fled, the people who remained were generally criminals. They were generally porters, spies," he said. "With this in mind, we believe those who died were criminals and not civilians, if I can say so. The fact that the residents are informed of planned fighting inevitably allows the regrouping of the same residents in more secure areas."

"I would like to inform the public and [the] international community that the operations under way are essentially a response to distress signals sent out by Bujumbura Rural residents," Nzabampema added.

Meanwhile, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Burundi, Marie-Therese Keita-Bocoum, recently told the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that although some progress had been made, including the establishment of a transitional government, internal armed conflicts were continuing in the country.

She said the security situation was worrisome, and violations of the right to life and other civil and political rights were widespread, adding that one concern was the kidnapping of children.