BUJUMBURA, Dec 20 (AFP) - A senior United Nations official is currently in Burundi touring camps housing thousands of people displaced in the civil war which has torn the country apart since 1993, the UN said.

The UN special coordinator for the internally displaced, Dennis MacNamara, arrived on Monday and has been visiting camps near the capital Bujumbura as well as in Muyinga province, in the northeast of the country, a UN official said, giving no further details.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said there were 324,000 people living in camps for the displaced in September, against more than 800,000 in January.

The dramatic fall is largely explained by the gradual closure since July of so-called regroupment camps in Bujumbura Rural, the province that surrounds the capital.

State radio reported, meanwhile, that a World Bank delegation is on an official visit to Burundi to assess progress in a health scheme it is coordinating, aimed in particualr at the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Earlier this month, international donors meeting in Paris agreed to grant Burundi some 440 million dollars (500 million euros) in humanitarian, reconstruction and development aid.

Since 1993, more than 200,000 people have been killed in Burundi's civil war, which pits Hutu rebel groups against a government and army dominated by the small Tutsi minority.

A peace accord was signed on August 28 at Arusha, Tanzania, by 19 parties involved in the conflict, but was rejected by the two main Hutu rebel movements and fighting has persisted.

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