"Great Lakes region hit by new crisis"

Bujumbura - Tiny Rwanda and Burundi have threatened action against the central African giant, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after the massacre of Congolese Tutsi refugees in Burundi, which has pushed Africa's volatile Great Lakes region into a new ethnic crisis.

"I have not ruled out an offensive against the DRC aimed at making them respect our country's borders," General Germain Niyoyankana, head of Burundi's army, told reporters on Tuesday, four days after 160 Tutsis were slaughtered at a refugee camp four kilometers inside Burundi from the DRC border, by suspected Hutu extremists.

"There is no longer any doubt that the site at Gatumba was the target of a coalition of negative forces made up of the Burundi Hutu rebel FNL, acting as guides, former Rwandan armed forces and part of the DRC army," he said, alleging that the Congolese military was involved in the massacre.

The United Nations, which has been trying to mediate an end to Burundi's decade-long ethnic-driven civil war, broke off talks with the FNL after the group's claim it had carried out the attack.

Full Article : iol.co.za