Reports from Burundi say there is heavy fighting north of the capital, Bujumbura.

The Augustin Nzojibwami-led FRODEBU party faction has demanded that a people's referendum be organised so that the "Burundi people voice their opinion on the alienation of their right to elect their leaders to foreigners, the loss of its sovereignty and the partitioning of the country in G7 (Hutu) and G10 (Tutsi)".

Burundian women are fighting for more representation in the country's affairs. The Collectif des associations des ONGs feminines du Burundi (CAFOB) is at the forefront of this struggle. Its main goals are to fight for the participation of Burundian women in civil and political life, to circulate information on problems related to women and to defend their rights. IRIN interviewed its representative, Christine Ntarwirumugara.

The living conditions among the Batwa community who were recently relocated to a new site in Buterere district, in Bujumbura Mairie, are "very precarious", a recent joint assessment team of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Burundi, a representative of the Ministry of Reintegration and Reinstallation of Refugees and Displaced Populations of Bujumbura Mairie found out.

As Burundi prepares to start, on 1 November 2001, a period of transitional government and institutional reform, Amnesty International today, in an eight-page appeal, Burundi: Preparing for peace, highlighted measures which should be implemented now by the current government, political leaders, leaders of armed political movements, civil society and the international community to protect human rights.