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KIGALI, Oct 23 (AFP) - Burundi's Health Minister Jean Minani said Saturday he was forming a government in exile here as some 80,000 Burundi nationals took refuge in Rwanda after their president was toppled in a coup d'etat.
Minani, who was visiting Rwanda when President Melchior Ndadaye was overthrown Thursday, told Radio Rwanda that he was setting up a government in conjunction with politicians elected in June's general elections.
He appealed to the U.N. Security Council and the international community to restore peace and democracy in Burundi.
Tens of thousands of Burundis were continuing to cross into Rwanda Saturday, according to government and international aid workers in the border region.
The refugees were mostly women, children and elderly persons.
"The men bring their families and then go back," a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) official said. "One does not know if they are going back to guard their homes or to fight -- the army or a rival tribe."
At least 100,000 Burundis have fled into Rwanda since the coup, Rwanda's Prime Minister Agathe Uwilngiyimana said. But the UNHCR put the figure at 80,000.
There were conflicting reports as to whether the refugees were fleeing inter-tribal fighting.
Radio Rwanda quoted refugees as saying that the soldiers had thrown handgrenades at a school and hospital in Kilemba. The radio's correspondent reported seeing 13 corpses in the Akanyaru river on the Burundi border.
But the UNHCR official said he knew of only one wounded refugee, who had been stabbed.
The situation in the Burundi capital was calm, according to officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) here who said they had contacted their colleagues in Bujumbura by radio.
However the ICRC officials in Bujumbura said they appeared to be the only persons allowed to move around in the capital which is under curfew.
Radio Burundi has still given no news of Ndadaye, who became the first president from the majority Hutu tribe when he won the country's first multi-party elections four months ago.
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