Burundi: more civilian victims of violence

9 August 1995
ICRC News 32

The ICRC took 21 seriously wounded people (including nine children, five women and two elderly men) to hospital in Bujumbura on 6 August following a number of attacks in the three north-eastern provinces. Among the injured was Frans, an eight-month-old baby, who lost a leg.

The ICRC is greatly concerned by the high number of civilians who are being killed, wounded or forced to abandon their homes and property after being caught up in fighting or deliberately attacked.

Delegates are endeavouring to alleviate the victims' suffering through constant presence in the field and by providing medical and other emergency supplies, but the ICRC sees daily evidence that the many appeals to spare the civilian population that have been made since the conflict began have failed to have appreciable effects.

In order that other children like Frans may be preserved from violence in the future, the ICRC delegation in Burundi intends to resume the radio and television campaign carried out last year to promote the basic principles of humanitarian law across a broad range of society, from the military to the man in the street, so that human dignity will be respected in all circumstances.