Fighting in Burundi is escalating ahead of peace talks due to take place in Tanzania on Thursday.

The Burundi army says it has killed more than 200 rebel fighters in fierce fighting over the past two weeks.

Burundi conflict

Population: 6 million (1997) Hutu (85%) Tutsi (14%) Twa (1%) 200,000 killed since 1993 President: Pierre Buyoya (Tutsi) since 1996 coup Buyoya due to hand over to Hutu next year

Clashes were reported to be continuing near the central town of Gitega on Tuesday night and the road to Bujumbura was closed on Wednesday.

A power-sharing agreement between the Tutsi-dominated government and some ethnic Hutu rebels came into effect last November but two rebels groups have continued fighting.

The BBC's Helen Vesperini in neighbouring Rwanda says that this is the most serious fighting since the agreement came into effect.

Tanzania accused

Regional military sources say that two columns of fighters from the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) rebel group entered from Tanzania, burning houses and looting as they went.

Burundi accuses Tanzania of sheltering rebel fighters among the hundreds of thousands of refugees in camps near the border.

Tanzania denies such accusations.

Army spokesman Colonel Augustin Nzabampema said 57 rebels had been killed near Kumoso and Buragane, near the eastern border with Tanzania.

He said that two civilians and seven soldiers had also lost their lives.

Another 152 rebels were killed on a plateau near the Gitega, 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of the capital, Bujumbura.

Rebels split

"We continue to accuse Tanzania of hosting the rebels, its an obvious fact that any person can check on the ground," Colonel Nzabampema said.

"When people who attack Burundi come from Tanzania, no one can say Tanzania is a friendly country."

Hopes were high last year

The FDD has agreed to meet government representatives in Dar es Salaam on Thursday but Associated Press news agency reports that the National Liberation Forces (FLN) has so far refused to attend.

Under last year's agreement, brokered by Nelson Mandela, President Pierre Buyoya is due to cede power to an ethnic Hutu, Domitien Ndayizeye, in April 2003.

About 200,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the past nine years of fighting in Burundi.