Citation
BUJUMBURA, Oct 26 (AFP) - Around 10,000 people staged a silent demonstration here Tuesday against the military coup that has sparked a new wave of ethnic violence in Burundi.
Demonstrators walked through the streets of the Burundian capital that were otherwise quiet with public transport at a halt.
Fears of reprisals for the military coup and the assassination of president Melchior Nadadaye have sent many of the Tutsi minority fleeing their homes in the outskirts of Bujumbura for the safety of the city centre.
Prime Minister Sylvie Kanigi meanwhile ordered the Tutsi-dominated army back to barracks and promised "severe punishment" for those responsible for the coup, Rwanda national radio reported in a broadcast monitored in Nairobi by the BBC.
Kanigi, who is hiding in the French embassy, said she was annulling all the measures taken by the military following Thursday's coup.
She also said the country's borders and Bujumbura international airport would soon be opened, but the radio quoted Burundian Justice Minister Fulgence Bakana, who is in Kigali, as saying that no date for the opening could be fixed immediately since the government did not control the security forces.
lto/rt/gk AFP AFP
