Mandela highlights Burundi crisis

BBC News, Wednesday 19 January 2000, 16:57 GMT

Former South African President Nelson Mandela has said that attempts to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the civil war in Burundi are being undermined by a failure to halt the "senseless violence" there.

Mr Mandela said the Burundi Government had a responsibility "to defend and protect the Burundian population, and not just a given part of it."

More than 300,000 Burundians are thought to have fled the conflict, in Central Africa's worst refugee crisis in three years.