A United Nations Security Council team has urged rebels in Burundi to stop fighting. 

French Ambassador Jean-David Leveitte, leading a 15-member U.N. delegation now visiting South Africa, told three rebel groups to join the peace process today, not tomorrow. 

He added that all sides must embrace a cessation of hostilities leading to a cease-fire agreement. 

Mr. Levitte and his mission met with leaders from the Forces for The Defence of Democracy (FDD), the National Liberation Forces, and a splinter group of the FDD. 

Burundi has been engulfed in war since 1993, resulting in at least 200,000 deaths. It pits majority ethnic Hutu rebels against the minority ethnic Tutsi-dominated military. 

The U.N. Security Council Team is in South Africa as part of an eight-nation tour aimed at bolstering peace efforts in both Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 

Their visit includes stops in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, the DRC, and Rwanda. 

The U.N. team's goal for the DRC is to build on a partial peace deal reached during weeks of talks in Sun City, South Africa, between two of the three warring sides. 

Some information for this report provided by AFP and Reuters.

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