An estimated 3,000 civilians were displaced on Saturday following fighting between rebels and government troops in the northwestern province of Bujumbura Rural. The displaced sought refuge in the commune of Kabezi in an area under the control of UN peacekeepers. Kabezi already hosts some 30,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) as a result of persistent insecurity due to fighting between the army and the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL) led by Agathon Rwasa.

Organising general elections in Burundi by 31 October, the deadline for the conclusion of a three-year transitional period, is feasible, says Pierre Nkurunziza, the head of the former largest rebel movement in the country, the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Forces pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD). The CNDD-FDD recently transformed itself into a political party.

Following the massacre of the 160 Congolese refugees in a temporary camp in Burundi, the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) has said that too little is being done to ensure the basic human rights of refugees who are confined to camps or segregated settlements. "Refugees are frequently warehoused in remote, desolate and dangerous border areas in conditions of hopelessness and despair, subject to aggression, sexual exploitation, and risk of attack and murder," said USCR's statement, issued last week.

A meningitis vaccination campaign that began on 24 July in parts of northern Burundi was extended on Monday to two areas where six people were reported to have died from the disease last week, a health ministry official told IRIN. The six deaths occurred in the two communes in the northern province of Kayanza.

The one rebel movement still fighting in Burundi’s civil war was declared a terrorist group on Wednesday at a one-day summit of regional heads of state. The leaders also ratified a timetable for Burundi’s elections to be held before 1 November.

The massacre of 160 Tutsi refugees at the Gutambe camp in western Burundi was the latest in a catalogue of atrocities conducted “in a cycle of impunity”, human rights observers say. Agencies have accused the international community of ignoring evidence of previous human rights violations to secure diplomatic success in Burundi's troubled peace process, and are demanding a thorough investigation and public enquiry into the massacre.

The United Nations has suspended peace talks with the Burundi rebel group which claimed responsibility for massacring more than 160 Congolese Tutsi refugees, a spokeswoman for U.N. operation in Burundi said on Tuesday. A regional summit on the country's shaky transition to peace was due to be held in Tanzania on Wednesday and political analysts said they expect the regional leaders to recommend severe action against the FNL.

A nationwide campaign to increase public awareness on the importance of breastfeeding began on Monday, with a workshop in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura. World Breastfeeding Week had taken place the week before. Medical workers and journalists attended the Bujumbura event, which was organised by the National Programme for Reproductive Health in conjunction with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Around 500 members of the former rebel movement the Conseil national de défense de la démocratie-Forces de défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD), took a formal decision of becoming a political party at a congress held from 7 to 8 August in the central province of Gitega. In accordance with a ceasefire agreement, Burundi’s Ministry of Home Affairs will automatically approve the new political party once combatants begin cantonment.

In a bid to prepare for Burundi's upcoming general elections, the cabinet has nominated five members to form the National Independent Electoral Commission, government spokesman Onésime Nduwimana said on Tuesday. Their names will be sent to the national assembly for endorsement and then to the head of state for promulgation, he said.

Twenty-eight Burundian political and ex-militia leaders are due to resume meetings again on Wednesday in a bid to finalise the country's post-transitional power-sharing agreement. The two-day meeting will be held in Pretoria, South Africa, at the invitation of the facilitator of the Burundi peace process, South African Deputy-President Jacob Zuma. He has invited all 17 political parties that signed the Arusha Agreement, three former rebel movements that signed the ceasefire accords, and eight newly approved political parties in an effort to resolve the power-sharing issue that has blocked the development of a post-transitional constitution.

Six of Burundi's pro-Tutsi parties have walked out of a meeting with chief peace mediator, South Africa's Deputy President Jacob Zuma. Mr Zuma was in Burundi to brief parties about a draft power-sharing agreement reached last week in South Africa. The proposal suggests the national assembly and government be composed of 60% ethnic Hutus and 40% Tutsis.

In a bid to encourage refugees and other war victims to repatriate voluntarily and reintegrate into Burundian life, UN agencies are turning their attention to improving the low level of social services, particularly with health care. Three UN agencies and the Burundi government jointly signed a memorandum last week to provide equipment and essential medicine as well as to rehabilitate health centres ruined by 10 years of political crisis and war.

Despite continuing insecurity in Burundi's western province of Bujumbura Rural, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) continues to deliver food aid to thousands of people affected by the country's long-running civil war, the agency reported on Friday. WFP said it had resumed food distributions on Monday in the most troubled commune of Kabezi in Bujumbura Rural, south of the capital, Bujumbura.

Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye has announced details of a draft power-sharing agreement after years of civil war. The proposal suggests the national assembly and government be composed of 60% ethnic Hutu and 40% Tutsi. The deal is due to be signed next week and will form the new constitution ahead of elections due in October. But the Tutsi Uprona party has rejected this, it wants seats to be given to parties as well as ethnic groups.

An estimated 300 imprisoned soldiers went on strike on Monday, at Mpimba Prison, the main prison in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, paralysing the admission and transfer of new prisoners and preventing court hearings. The army prisoners are requesting temporary immunity, which had previously been granted to some 500 members of the main former rebel group, the CNDD-FDD. Some of the soldiers have been in jail since the beginning of Burundi's 10-year civil war and claim they had been forced to commit crimes by political leaders who are now free.

Concern Worldwide

The Country Director will be responsible for the leadership of the senior management team in Concern Burundi and for the production and implementation of its second country strategic plan. The successful candidate will be fluent in French, hold a masters degree in a related discipline and have five years management experience, ideally in the Great Lakes Region.

The considerable progress Burundi has made over the past year in consolidating its three-year transition risks ending in a dangerous political vacuum if strong commitments are not made immediately to the electoral process outlined in the 2000 Arusha agreement. Such a vacuum can only result in the discrediting and even failure of the entire peace process and the withdrawal of the former CNDD-FDD rebel movement from the government, which it only joined in December 2003. This is according to a new report from the International Crisis Group.

Just outside the capital Bujumbura, civilians in Burundi have been killed, raped and injured in ongoing combat between government troops allied with former rebel combatants and the forces of a rebel group that remains outside the country's peace process, Human Rights Watch said in a new briefing paper. The 15-page report, "Suffering in Silence: Civilians in Continuing Combat in Bujumbura Rural," documents how these war crimes have been committed by all three parties in the conflict: government troops, allied combatants from the former rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Forces pour la défense de la démocratie, or FDD), and forces from the rebel National Liberation Forces (Forces nationales pour la liberation, or FNL). In November the FDD, whose forces are still led by former rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza, reached an accord with the government. But the FNL, led by Agathon Rwasa, has not yet joined the peace process.

Ask most children who have never visited Africa about the lives of their age-mates there, chances are that they will have a mental picture of them playing outside huts or herding cattle in a spacious rural landscape. Less likely would be a picture of an African child like Canésius Ndihokubwayo eking out a living on the streets of towns and cities. As the continent marks the Day of the African Child on Wednesday, Ndihokubwayo's story illustrates his plight and that of those like him. At 13 years old, Ndihokubwayo is already a veteran of the streets. When, after his father died, he left his village in Bubanza Province in 1999, he was confident of finding a job and hopeful for a better life; but disappointment swiftly followed. Ndihokubwayo ended up living on the streets because his surrogate father, who had promised him work, failed to deliver.