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News24.com
SA peacekeepers leave Burundi
2010-01-01 10:07
Bujumbura - South Africa's soldiers in the African Union
peacekeeping mission in Burundi have left the country, the African Union said on
Thursday.
The group of around 110 soldiers were responsible for
protecting leaders of the ex-rebel group the National Liberation Forces (FNL),
while training a newly created FNL-national army coalition, which has now taken
over from the AU.
"The last South African soldiers from the African Union
Special Task Force still operating in Burundi completed their mission on
Wednesday morning and left the country for good to return to South Africa," said
Mamadou Bah, AU special representative in Burundi.
Burundi and the FNL, the country's last active rebel group,
agreed to a ceasefire in 2006.
In April 2009, the FNL became a political party and its
fighters joined the national army.
The central African country is still struggling to emerge
from its civil war, which began in 1993, mainly pitting rebels from the Hutu
majority population against the Tutsi minority, which at the time dominated the
army.
Some 300 000 people were killed in the conflict.
