About 180 Burundian refugees are dying daily and hundreds more are threatened by disease and malnutrition if more aid is not received by Christmas, a U.N official warned on Monday.
Felippo Grandi, regional coordinator for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the number of refugees reported dying has increased 50 percent since last month. He said only $8 million of the $53 million requested by the U.N. relief agency to care for the refugees had been pledged.About 700,000 Burundians fled ethnic fighting in their homeland and are suffering from malnutrition and disease at camps in neighboring Tanzania, Zaire and Rwanda.
Grandi estimated that up to 100,000 people died in fighting between Burundi's majority Hutu ethnic group and the minority but long dominant Tutsi that was touched off by an Oct. 21 coup.
Among those killed in the failed coup by members of the Tutsi-dominated army was Burundi's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu.
"Preventive health measures . . . require resources," Grandi said. "The funds are needed now. Before Christmas."