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Transition to New Government Proves Rough for People in Bujumbura
As the Burundi government transitions from control by one ethnic group to another, civilians are feeling the tension as rebel groups continue to attack the capital city of Bujumbura. Over Easter weekend, 10 civilians were killed and another 40 were injured as the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), protested their exclusion from the transition process by bombing Kanyosha Commune just south of Bujumbura.Ethnic Hutu and Tutsi have been involved in civil war in Burundi for the past decade, killing some 300,000 civilians in the process. In 2000, the government and most rebels groups signed the Arusha Peace Accords. According to the peace pact, current president Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, would serve for the first half of a three-year transitional period beginning in November of 2001. During the transition, power would be deliberately balanced between the powerful Tutsi minority and the underrepresented Hutu majority. May 1 marked the transition between Buyoya’s administration and that of Hutu Domitien Ndayizeye.
“This is an extremely fragile time for the people of Burundi,” said Maereg Tafere, World Vision’s national director based in Bujumbura. “We are calling on people worldwide to pray for the stability of this country.”
Since the civil war began in 1993, some 300,000 people have been killed. Nearly 300,000 have been displaced from their homes. Cholera and malaria continue to plague the country and nearly 20 percent of all children die before the age of five, most of preventable diseases.
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