Over 70 people were slain in two different incidents in Burundi. 30 were killed when a Burundian army unit raided a village outside the capital, Bujumbura. In another incident south of Bujumbura, the army and Tutsi militia forces killed 40 civilians.
September 20; Burundi Army spokesmen said their forces killed 13 civilians and 5 Hutu rebels in the Mutanga area outside of the capital, Bujumbura. The fighting included small arms exchanges and artillery fire supporting government forces.
September 16; A former Burundian president said that the situation in Burundi could be approaching that of Rwanda in 1993 and 1994. He claimed that 200,000 people have died in fighting in Burundi since 1993. Ex-president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya , a Hutu, said that the Tutsi-led government's call for the creation of "civil self-defense groups" was a very bad sign. These militias, he argued, cannot be controlled by the civil authorities. Ntibantunganya was toppled in a Tutsi-led coup in 1996. Burundi's current president, Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, replaced Ntibantunganya.
September 8; Rebels and the Burundi Army fought for control of the Bugarama highway, northeast of the capital, Bujumbura.
