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BUJUMBURA, Nov 25 (AFP) - The funeral of Burundi's murdered president Melchior Ndadaye has been postponed from next Monday to December 6 because of insecurity marked by further killing overnight, officials said here Thursday.
After a night of gunfire in part of the capital and a breakdown of the telecommunications system, traders and office employees left work amid rumours of a new coup attempt, a government source said.
An unspecified number of people were shot dead in Cibitoke suburb, the source added, while a U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) official said he saw burning homes and more people arriving in displaced people's camps while he travelled round Burundi in the last week.
The governor of the northern Kirundo province was killed on Wednesday night in circumstances that remained unclear, the government source said.
Ndadaye, Burundi's first president from the Hutu majority, elected this year after the installation of multi-party democracy, and several of his aides were assassinated on October 21 by rebels in the Tutsi-dominated army.
The coup attempt was followed by massacres among Hutus and Tutsis, which left tens of thousands of dead, according to relief officials, though the exact figure may never be known. Hundreds of thousands of people fled the country.
Speaking earlier Thursday in neighbouring Rwanda, where he has been based since the coup bid found him on a visit to Kigali, Health Minister Jean Minani said: "Security does not appear to have been restored."
Two days of mourning, when Burundis will be able to pay their last respects to the assassinated president and six of his aides as their coffins lie in state, have been shortened to one, on December 5, an official said.
The others slain included the minister of territorial adminstration Juvenal Ndayikeza and national assembly speaker Pontien Karibwami.
The government of Prime Minister Sylvie Kinigi has sought to reestablish its authority after emerging from hiding in foreign embassies since the coup, but ministers have expressed fears of further violence.
