BURUNDI : President Is Forced to Flee Funeral

Angry crowds stoned the helicopter of Burundi’s Hutu president, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, as he tried to attend the mass funeral of 304 members of the minority Tutsi tribe slain over the weekend. Ntibantunganya, whose two predecessors were assassinated, had to abandon plans to attend the mass funeral in Burundi’s central region and flew to safety. An aide said Ntibantunganya was unhurt. Meanwhile, the U.N. refugee agency said Burundi had agreed, for now, to halt forced repatriation of Rwandan Hutu refugees, 15,000 of whom have been deported to a homeland they fear. The news of a halt to the expulsions came shortly after a Rwandan minister told reporters that Burundi intended to empty its refugee camps of all 85,000 Rwandans by next week.