Burundi's government and the country's last active rebel group have agreed to end hostilities and draft a permanent ceasefire deal in the next two weeks. Observers say a deal with the FNL is seen as one of the final hurdles for stability after the long civil war.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, and the European Union Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, arrived on Friday 16 June in Bujumbura for a two-day visit. The officials arrived from Tanzania, where they had visited camps hosting Burundian refugees and witnessed the repatriation of some of the refugees.

Between April 2005 and March 2006, some 19,000 Rwandan asylum seekers had arrived in Burundi's northern provinces. They were reportedly fleeing persecution under Rwanda's traditional ‘gacaca’ justice system, which the government introduced to expedite trials for thousands of suspects held in connection with the 1994 genocide. Since 12 April, the Burundian government has repatriated 5,206 Rwandans from its northern provinces of Ngozi and Kirundo.

A new policy of free medical care for Burundian mothers and children was intended to improve their lives; instead it has crippled the nation's health system. Public hospitals in Burundi have recorded double, sometimes triple, the number of patients since a presidential directive for free paediatric and maternal health services was implemented on May 1.

Peace talks between the government of Burundi and the country's remaining rebel group, the Forces nationales de liberation (FNL), which began on 29 May in Tanzania, are still at an informal stage, an official of the rebel movement said on Wednesday.