UN agencies agreed on Friday to suspend operations for one day on Tuesday 11 June in protest at the killings and to express solidarity with other aid workers. Cibitoke is the most dangerous region in Burundi and has been out of bounds for UN personnel since September 1995. Hutu militia are reported to control large parts of Cibitoke, while the Army is said to control only the main town centre. The ICRC is the last major agency operating in Cibitoke. The Prime Minister warned that Burundi was heading towards its own destruction if crime was accepted as a day to day event.
News agencies say that all indications are that the fax was a forgery.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Madame Sadako Ogata, and the Secretary-General of the OAU, Salim Ahmed Salim, also made a fresh joint appeal to Burundi leaders to end the violence. The killings follow the announcement by France on 28 May that it has suspended all its military cooperation and has reduced its civilian aid programmes to Burundi. From 9 June there will be only one French military adviser left in the country. The French school in Bujumbura closed early last month and all non-essential French nationals have been advised to leave. The Belgian school, due to close for the summer on 15 June, was urged by Brussels to close earlier and nationals without urgent business have also been advised to leave.