Burundi students escape rebels

South African peacekeepers are in Bujumbura

A large group of kidnapped Burundi students escaped their Hutu rebel captors during clashes with the Tutsi-led army, local officials said on Saturday.

But at least another 100 are said to remain in rebel hands.

Hundreds of male students have been abducted from schools in north-western Kayanza province and eastern Ruyigi over the past week.

The rebels are heading towards Gahombo and Muhanga and the army is following them

Come Hatungimana

About 100 of them returned home on Friday after government forces clashed with the kidnappers in a dawn gun battle, according to Come Hatungimana, a local government administrator in Kayanza.

"The rebels are heading towards Gahombo and Muhanga and the army is following them," he told Reuters. "The battles are still continuing. We think at least 100 (Musema) students remain hostages."

It is feared that the pupils, aged between 16 and 21, are either intended to be trained as rebel soldiers or to be used as human shields in case of army attacks.

Local official Come Hatungimana told Reuters by telephone that the rebels made off with somewhere between 250 and 300 pupils in total.

Fighting has intensified in Burundi since the swearing in last week of a new government which shares power between the deeply divided Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

Fighting

On Thursday, the army said their troops had killed 162 rebels in five days of fighting in Ruyigi and Bururi provinces.

Mandela failed to secure a ceasefire

The United Nations has called for an immediate ceasefire.

The UN Security Council issued a statement saying that armed rebellion was an unacceptable means of political expression after the installation of the new government.

But our East Africa correspondent says the rebels' brutal tactic of kidnapping children is a clear signal that they have no intention of laying down their arms.

The two Hutu rebel groups, who remain outside the peace process, have been fighting against the minority Tutsi dominated army since 1993.

Former South Africa President Nelson Mandela, who mediated the peace deal, had expressed the hope that they would join the power-sharing arrangement which leads to democratic elections in three years time.

He spent more than two years trying to end the fighting but became increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress towards a ceasefire.

He stepped down as mediator when the transitional government was inaugurated.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in the eight-year civil war.