{ At least 12 gunmen have died in clashes with Burundian government troops in a northern region near the border with Rwanda, a regional official said Saturday.}<\/p>\n
The fighting took place on Friday near Rugazi, 140 kilometres (85 miles) north of the capital Bujumbura and in a thickly forested area on the Rwandan border.<\/p>\n
The attack has been claimed by rebel Burundian army soldiers who attempted but failed to overthrow President Pierre Nkurunziza in a coup in mid-May.<\/p>\n
The central African nation has been gripped by months of unrest over Nkurunziza’s plan to stand for a third consecutive five-year term, which opposition groups say is unconstitutional and a violation of a peace deal that ended a dozen years of civil war in 2006.<\/p>\n
“The local population alerted a military post and there were two battles which left 12 of the attackers dead.”<\/p>\n
He added that the group was believed to be around 500-strong, and that the remaining fighters had “disappeared into the forest”.<\/p>\n
Speaking to France24 television late Friday, Burundian rebel general Leonard Ngendakumana — who took part in the failed coup in May to topple Nkurunziza — said rebel soldiers were involved in the fighting.<\/p>\n
“Our soldiers were attacked by the army and responded. They inflicted several losses on Nkurunziza’s forces,” he told the station.<\/p>\n
He also denied the rebel soldiers had crossed from Rwanda, dismissing the allegation as government “propaganda” and insisting rebel soldiers were present in many parts of Burundi.<\/p>\n
General Ngendakumana, a former top intelligence officer, is an ally of coup leader General Godefroid Niyombare, who has been on the run since their attempt to seize power was thwarted.<\/p>\n
Over 70 people have been killed in more than two months of anti-Nkurunziza protests, with over 158,000 refugees fleeing to neighbouring countries, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n
There are fears the current crisis could plunge the impoverished, landlocked country back into civil war.<\/p>\n
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{ At least 12 gunmen have died in clashes with Burundian government troops in a northern region near the border with Rwanda, a regional official said Saturday.} The fighting took place on Friday near Rugazi, 140 kilometres (85 miles) north of the capital Bujumbura and in a thickly forested area on the Rwandan border. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000069146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-20103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000069146,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20103.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20103.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20103.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20103.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20103.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20103.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000069146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20103"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=20103"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=20103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}