By Chris Simpson in Bujumbura

The government in Burundi says it is doing everything it can to improve conditions in more than 50 resettlement camps in the west of the country.

And after a series of deaths earlier in the month, the threat of a cholera epidemic in the camps appears to have receded.

Over the past few months the government has forcibly re-located over 350,000 people in the western region of Bujumbura Rural, in what it has described as a campaign of protection aimed at defending the local population against rebel militias.

But the camps policy has been severely criticised by the international community as representing a serious violation of human rights and exposing the thousands involved to hunger and disease.

Cholera 'over'

At Ruziba camp just 15 minutes drive from the capital, government health officials said there have been more than 300 cases of cholera registered over the past few weeks but only five deaths.

They talked of carrying out a major health and sanitation campaign.

I was assured that everything is now being done to provide a clean, chlorinated water supply while efforts are being made to educate camp residents on how to avoid getting sick.

At Kibezi, 5 km further south, it was a similar story.

A visiting doctor told me: "We know how to control these problems, the cholera is over".

The government maintained that, if there is a proper partnership with relief organisations, the camps will prove to be sustainable - at least as an interim solution.

Agencies overstretched

But agencies involved in assisting the resettled admit to being overstretched, having to keep up with the constant demands for food, blankets, clothes and plastic sheeting.

The government declined to give a clear timetable for dismantling the camps, promising simply that people would return home once security had been restored to Bujumbura Rural.

That could still take months.

A camp resident at Ruziba, a re-located schoolteacher, told me there was regular gunfire in the surrounding hills and hamlets, with the rebel militia still clearly active close by.

He complained too that the government soldiers treated the population like prisoners, restricting their freedom of movement and making it clear that Ruziba was army territory.