Burundi: UN helps build safer shelters for people displaced by ongoing fighting

As Burundi government forces and rebels continue to clash near Bujumbura, the capital, United Nations agencies and non-government organizations (NGOs) are constructing temporary shelters for an estimated 25,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today.

The new site in Kabezi Commune, just south of Bujumbura, will put some distance between the IDPs and government military positions, which are regularly attacked by the Front National de Libération (FNL), the only rebel group not to have joined the peace process after a decade of war in the small Central African country.

As other rebel forces join with various political parties in efforts to form a multi-party, power-sharing government, more than 80,000 Burundians who fled to surrounding countries have returned so far this year, with over 10,000 coming home in the last month alone, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

In May the UN Security Council created the UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB), with an eventual strength of 5,650 military personnel and up to 1,000 national and international civilian staff, to help restore lasting peace and bring about national reconciliation between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis.