Bujumbura - The Burundian army has forcibly resettled almost 260,000 civilians into camps in the hills around the capital in the last month and a possible humanitarian crisis looms, a UN agency said yesterday. The resettlement, a classic counter-insurgency tactic to deny ethnic Hutu rebels food and support from the local population, has been prompted by an intensification of the country's six-year civil war.
"Close to 260,000 people are grouped in 30 camps and are living in very poor conditions," Mr Jahal Rabesahala, head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Burundi, said.