Cape Town - Belgium and the European Union will pay the $158 million cost of deploying up to 1,400 South African soldiers in Burundi to protect the new transitional government, peacemakers said yesterday.
"All the funds for the whole operation will come from Belgium and the EU. That's what we've asked for and what has been accepted," Ms Zelda la Grange, spokeswoman for former South African president, Mr Nelson Mandela, who brokered a peace deal for Burundi, said.
The new authority installed on Thursday aims to divide power between the two groups to end fighting that has killed about 200,000 people since 1993.