RELIEF agencies are building a new refugee camp in eastern Zaire to accommodate thousands of Burundians fleeing ethnic fighting at home, the United Nations reported yesterday.
The camp in Zaire's eastern province of Uvira, being established by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and international non governmental agencies, will be able to accommodate 100,000 refugees, the UN Department of Humanitarian Affairs reported.
UNHCR figures show that the number of refugees fleeing Burundi, where the Tutsi dominated army staged a coup on July 25th, had doubled to more than 1,000 a day.
Those figures were reported on Wednesday by the UN World Food Programme regional office in Nairobi, but in Kinshasa, a UNHCR official just back from Bukavu, about 100 kms from the affected area, said the local governor told him the border remained sealed and that such a movement of refugees "could not pass unnoticed".
Zairean government officials also said that they had no news of such an influence with one of them saying: "We are surprised by such information for which there has been absolutely no confirmation to date from local authorities."
Meanwhile, Burundi's military junta marked a week in power by vowing yesterday to overcome economic sanctions aimed at bringing it down.
Central and East African leaders agreed at a summit in Tanzania on Wednesday to impose a total but undefined embargo to force ethnic the Tutsi strongman, Maj Pierre Buyoya, to return the country to civilian rule. He took power when the army ousted the Hutu president, Mr Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, last week.
The day after the decision, none of the details had been released and Maj Buyoya's new prime minister, Mr Pascal Firmin Ndimira, said his government would survive boycotts.
Mr Ndimira, an ethnic Hutu who was appointed prime minister on Wednesday, said the military government would talk to Hutu rebels if they gave up their weapons.
Belgium said sanctions were premature and other action should be considered to end the crisis in the former Belgian protectorate.
"Once you start with economic sanctions you will have the on its knees in a couple of days. Burundi is already so fragile and this could cause more violence," said the Foreign Minister, Mr Erik Derycke, on a visit to the United States.
There was no reaction from the United States which has led international pressure to stop the killings in Burundi for the past six months.
Maj Buyoya, who says he is more of a democrat than others in the troubled state, has tried to persuade the world that his coup's aim was to end ethnic strife which has killed 150,000 people in the past three years.
Maj Buyoya and Mr Ndimira have yet to announce the composition of the government.