Background Briefing

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Killings of Civilians

All sides have deliberately targeted civilians whom they supposed to be supporters of the other side, ignoring the distinction between civilian and combatant that is fundamental to international humanitarian law. A young girl said, “Soldiers say that everyone they see is a rebel. That women and girls are also rebels.”21

Witnesses from Kanyosha commune accuse government soldiers, perhaps those stationed at Mboza, of killing a ten-year-old child named Elias on November 14, 2003. Soldiers stopped the child, who was fleeing combat with his mother, at a barrier at Mugwa, Buhonga hill. When his mother tried to protect the child, the soldiers tore him from her arms, accusing him of being “one of those rebels who are shooting at us.” They killed him in front of his mother’s eyes. According to local witnesses, soldiers also stopped and killed Ambroise Nvuyekure, another civilian,  the same day at the same place.22 According to local witnesses,FDD combatants killed Emmanuel Nahurutari in Rushubi as he tried to prevent them from abducting his daughter Denise, said to have belonged to the Patriotic Hutu Youth (Jeunesses Patriotique Hutu, JPH), a FNL organization for young people.23

In late 2003 the FNL made a list of forty-nine persons in Mutambu commune accused of having attended an FDD meeting. Within several months, three of those on the list, Michel Nyabworo, Artémon Kirahinduka, and Stanislas Ciza, had been killed by the FNL and others had fled the area, said local witnesses.24 On March 29, 2004, in Muberure, commune Isale, FNL combatants killed one student because he was the brother of an older man supposed to be supporter of the FDD.25

Government soldiers mayhave also engaged in the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force, putting civilians at risk of injury and death. According to one witness, government soldiers fired mortars with no regard for fleeing civilians during an attack at Kabezi on March 16. “They set up a large weapon,” she said, and fired four shells towards Mena hill. You could clearly see the people fleeing down that hill towards Kabezi center. A shell fell on the civilians and I saw the dust rise up and the people ran in every direction. We prayed for them, that they would not die.”26 In another case, two government soldiers were shot and killed on January 26 in the Karinzi market in Mutambu commune, supposedly by FNL combatants. Other government soldiers then opened fire on the crowd, killing six civilians.27



[21] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, December 5, 2003. See also  Human Rights Watch, Burundi: Civilians pay the price  of a  faltering peace process, February 2003.

[22]Human Rights Watch interviews, Bujumbura, November 18, 20, 25, and 27, 2003.

[23] Human Rights Watch interview, Rushubi, March 19, 2004.

[24] Human Rights Watch interview, Mutambu, March 12, 2004.

[25] Human Rights watch interview, Muramvya, 29 mars 2004.

[26] Human Rights Watch interview, Bujumbura, March 18, 2004.

[27] Human Rights Watch interviews, Bujumbura, February 3, 2004 and Mutambu, March 12, 2004. .


<<previous  |  index  |  next>>juin 2004