 | | HEALTH
"Aids is a very serious threat to us"
Sabimana is one of the many Aids orphans of Burundi, a landlocked central African country with a population of over six million people.
Since the inauguration on 1st November 2001 of a transitional power-sharing government comprising the Tutsi minority and Hutu majority, there is now hope for much needed stability in the area. However, eight years of civil war between the Hutus and the Tutsis have devastated the country's health system. Aids has become a major concern as have malaria epidemics and statistics on malnutrition.
According to an estimate by Association Nationale de Soutien aux Seropositifs et Sideens, an organisation in Burundi which aims to support sufferers of HIV/Aids, there are 90,000 orphans whose parents have died of Aids.
Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says governments "... shall take appropriate measures... To ensure that all segments of society, in particular parents and children, are informed... and are supported in the use of basic knowledge of child health and nutrition..."
The last ten years have shown a steady improvement in the recognition and improvement of several children's rights across the world. In the area of health for example there has been significant progress in reducing infant and under-five mortality. In addition, while polio is still endemic in some countries, more than 175 nations have successfully eradicated the disease.
However, in a report published by the UN entitled We The Children, a number of factors are seriously reversing the improvement in some areas. The HIV/Aids epidemic is one such factor.
The report states that by the year 2000, "an estimated 10.4 million children currently under the age of 15 had lost their mother or both parents to Aids, 95% of them in sub-Saharan Africa."
Although health officials in Burundi have not given exact figures for the number of Aids sufferers nation wide, "Authorities say 80% of the country's hospital beds are now occupied by people with Aids..."
In her plea to the world, Sabimana, who is being cared for by an orphanage, asks parents to discuss the threat of Aids with their children. She says: | |  Listen to Sabimana's story in Kirundi | | 
My name is Sabimana. I am a child from [an] orphanage.
My parents died of Aids and I did not know anything about it. So I'd ask children, who still have parents, to talk... about the problem, so that if they died of Aids their children would know about it. I'd also ask children and parents to exchange views about their problems.
I would urge families to take in orphans whose parents have died of Aids to comfort them instead of dismissing these innocent children. They should look after them because those of us orphaned by Aids didn't expect the difficulties we have experienced.
We have found people of goodwill who receive us and treat us well. They feed us and help us in every way, especially with education so that we can get a proper preparation for our future. And they are still helping us. 
Recently, Sabimana wrote a poem on the threat of Aids. It offers harsh words for all concerned, but especially for her parents' generation. It reads:
Aids is a very serious threat to us.
It kills parents and leaves their children on their own.
Grief and sorrow fill their hearts because of the disease.
Instead of looking for happiness in prostitution let us pull together, get educated, everyone get to work to prepare our future because we can't rely on help from outside.
And to you all who are our elders, we don't mean to offend you, but things have gone out of control.
Parents no longer take their responsibility to their children seriously, and children no longer look up to their parents.
Enough is enough, please.
This is not progress but folly.
Let us have some decency, let us learn to respect and honour ourselves.
As the saying goes, "He who steals with a child strapped to their back is only teaching the child to become a thief, too." | | | Listen to Sabimana's story in Kirundi | | |  |  |
 A three-year transitional government was inaugurated in Burundi in November 2001 as part of efforts to end eight years of civil war between rebels from the Hutu majority and the government, supported by Tutsi-led soldiers.
During the years of violence, 200,000 people have died, over 300,000 have been displaced and the country's infrastructure has been devastated. Médecins Sans Frontières, the international medical aid agency, says children in particular are suffering from HIV/Aids, malaria, diarrhoea and respiratory tract infections.
Burundi's food supply has also become very insecure and today continues to rely on food assistance. According to a report by the UN World Food Programme, the WFP has dispatched 4,000 metres of food to some 375,000 people.
The fighting also spawned government-run refugee camps, which offer very poor conditions.
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