An unknown number of rebels have been killed in fighting against government troops in northern Burundi, forcing up to 65,000 civilians to flee their homes, army and local authority officials told IRIN on Tuesday.

On 01 July, Burundi will be celebrating its independence of 1962 from the Belgians, and while they will be observing this remarkable day the rest of the world will be hoping for the lasting peace of a ten year civil war that has ravaged that country, leaving more than 300 000 dead with over a million people, according to the UN, internally displaced or living abroad as refugees. Read this commentary from www.zmag.org by clicking on the link provided.

Attacks by the Conseil national pour la defense de la democratie-Force pour la defense de la democratie (CNDD-FDD) rebel faction led by Pierre Nkurunziza have increased in several areas in Burundi, the latest being the abduction on Monday of a local official in Kayanza Province to the north of the country.

The international community provides protection and assistance to 350 000 Burundian refugees in 10 camps in western Tanzania. With 10 000 Burundian refugees entering adulthood in the camps each year and the prospect for return uncertain, there is much scope for boredom, apathy and crime. What form of education is relevant and stimulating for such refugee populations? A paper from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) entitled ‘Vocational training for refugees: a case study from Tanzania’ evaluates ongoing skills training programmes for Burundian refugees.

The U.N. Security Council must focus on wartime violence against civilians in its upcoming mission to the Great Lakes region of Africa, Human Rights Watch said in a press release. In an open letter to the Security Council, Human Rights Watch also urged the Council to raise the need for justice for abuses with the leaders in the region.

Representatives of the Forces Nationales de Liberation (FNL) rebel faction led by Agathon Rwasa and Burundian government officials have been meeting in Switzerland since Saturday to discuss the possibility of holding peace negotiations, government and FNL sources told IRIN on Tuesday. Rwasa's faction is the only rebel group that has not signed a ceasefire agreement with the Burundian government, and its troops continue to stage sporadic attacks against government forces in parts of the country.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed concern on Tuesday that thousands of Burundian refugees returning home from Tanzanian camps may not be doing so voluntarily. In a statement, the agency that many of those who were going back home had complained that the level of food aid in the Tanzanian camps had steadily declined.

An estimated 50,000 Burundian civilians have fled new fighting between rebels and the army near the capital, local officials said, reports AFP. The new exodus, from an area in the Kabezi region, began at the weekend when the army began an offensive against mainly Hutu rebels of the National Liberation Forces.

The head of the mainly South African peacekeeping force in Burundi says there is no reason for them to be seen as the enemy by rebels, who have threatened to kill them. This follows remarks by Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe, spokesperson for the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), who this week accused the peacekeepers of siding with government troops and accompanying them into the interior of the country.

Local and international human rights campaigners on Sunday denounced violence which they said was "blindly directed at the civilian population" in Burundi, and urged the army and rebels to respect a ceasefire agreement reached on 2 December 2002.

Four associations fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS in Burundi have appealed to the government to improve access to anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) for children orphaned by AIDS.

Burundi has often been in the news of late – and the standard news by-line has finally been modified. Until very recently one spoke – and heard speak of – “…the tragic civil war which has claimed between 200,000 and 250,000 lives, most of them civilian…” In the last months, these figures have been adjusted to reflect the consequences of ongoing violence and one now reads that anything from 250,000 to 300,000 lives have been lost in the bloody civil war that has torn this tiny landlocked Central African country for 10 years now. To these 300,000 dead we now dare mention, add over a million displaced (550,000 of them refugees in Tanzania), countless wounded, maimed and traumatized and those others who have disappeared, and you can easily understand why not one of the nearly 7 million Burundians has been left unscathed by the “crisis” as it is euphemistically called.

In his December 2002 report to the UN Security Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan identified Burundi as one of five conflict-ridden countries across the world where children were being used as soldiers. However, while most of the armed groups named by Annan were opposition factions, his UN report pointed a finger at the Burundian government for abusing children by sending them to the frontline.

Fighting has intensified in Burundi in the months before the transfer of power to a new president, Human Rights Watch says in a new briefing paper, "Transition in Burundi: Time to Deliver." There have been military operations in nine of Burundi's seventeen provinces in the last two months.

Fighting has intensified in Burundi in the months before the transfer of power to a new president, Human Rights Watch said. There have been military operations in nine of Burundi's seventeen provinces in the last two months. All parties to the war in Burundi need to deliver on their promises for peace and justice, Human Rights Watch urged as the new president, Domitien Ndayizeye, was due to take office in Bujumbura.

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) distributed last Friday non-food items to more than 500 Burundian families who were displaced when rebels shelled Kanyosha Commune, Bujumbura Rural Province, the agency reported.

Serve as the IRC representative in-charge of the Makamba Field Office (approx. 35 national staff); Supervise implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all projects in Makamba Province (currently water/sanitation; hygiene promotion; malaria prevention; school construction; youth development); and Provide technical guidance as required.

Some 3,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) living in a refugee camp in Muyinga Province, northern Burundi, stoned vehicles belonging to an NGO on Saturday during a demonstration against what they termed poor human conditions, the privately owned Radio Isanganiro reported.

An independent radio station in Burundi, African Public Radio, reported that around 440 civilians have been killed in fighting in the eastern province of Ruyigi since January.

The Burundian government said last Friday it had released Jean Baptiste Bagaza, the leader of the suspended Tutsi opposition Parti pour le redressement national (PARENA), from house arrest. Bagaza, a former president of Burundi, was placed under house arrest in November 2002 for allegedly plotting to kill President Pierre Buyoya.