After 10 years of war, Burundi dreams of peace

[dArKeR]

Burundi on Tuesday enters its 11th year of civil war that has claimed more than 300 000 mostly civilian lives and ravaged this tiny French-speaking central African country that nevertheless clings today to hopes for peace.

The civil war was sparked 10 years ago by the assassination of Burundi's first Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye in an attempted military coup. A decade of inter-ethnic violence has followed.

To mark the anniversary, a ceremony is planned for Tuesday in the capital, Bujumbura, to commemorate his death on October 21, 1993.

The civil war has pitted fighters of the two main ethnic groupings in Burundi against each other -- Hutus representing 85% of the country's 6,9-million inhabitants against Tutsis, estimated at 14%.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22255