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October
7, 2001
Burundi Army Says It Frees Kidnapped Children
By Maria Eismont
BUJUMBURA (Reuters) - Burundian soldiers have freed a
group of schoolchildren and their four teachers who were kidnapped from a primary
school by ethnic Hutu rebels, army spokesman Augustin Nzadampema said on Wednesday.
"We learned that the children and teachers have returned following the
rapid action of the security forces who surrounded the assailants," he told
reporters in the capital Bujumbura.
He said 58 children and their four teachers had been kidnapped on Tuesday
from the eastern Ruyigi province, around 65 miles from Bujumbura, below
initial estimates of 80.
The children, mostly from the Hutu majority, were between 10 and 13 years
old.
No independent source could confirm details of the kidnapping as roads in
the area were closed because of an upsurge in ethnic fighting since a new
government of national reconciliation was installed last week.
Nzadampema said the Tutsi-dominated army had killed 162 rebels in clashes
in Ruyigi and Bururi provinces at the weekend.
He said 1,000 rebels had crossed into Burundi from neighboring Tanzania
before the clashes, and that fighting was still continuing in parts of the
south of the country.
No independent confirmation was available.
Nzadampema declined to comment army casualties, but on Monday military
sources said four soldiers had been killed.
An independent radio station said between 20 and 40 civilians had been
killed in fighting between the army and rebels in the hills around Bujumbura
in the last few days.
Local officials have also accused rebels of killing around 35 civilians in a
series of attacks on Ruyigi province and on Bururi province in the south.
Fighting has intensified since a new government, intended to steer the
country away from a civil war that has killed more than 200,000 people, was
inaugurated last Thursday.
The new cabinet divides power between the majority Hutus and the Tutsis,
who, though in the minority, have dominated both the government and the
army since independence from Belgium in 1962.
The main Hutu armed rebel groups reject the new government's authority
and have vowed to continue fighting, arguing that the army continues to be
dominated by Tutsis.
The transitional government is supposed to pave the way to democratic
elections in three years.
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