{On Sunday morning, Pope Francis called for prayers for the people of Burundi, where violent clashes have broken out following a failed coup last week.}<\/p>\n
\u201cI also wish to invite you to pray for the dear people of Burundi, who are living in a delicate moment,\u201d the pontiff said in his May 17 address ahead of the Regina Caeli prayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMay the Lord help everyone flee the violence and act responsibly for the good of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Pope was speaking at the conclusion of Mass for the canonization of four saints in Saint Peter\u2019s Square.<\/p>\n
Violence broke out last week after a failed coup against Burundi\u2019s President Pierre Nkurunziza.<\/p>\n
Around 20 people have been killed in the unrest, and tens of thousands have fled the country.<\/p>\n
Eighteen suspected perpetrators of the coup were in court on Saturday, while the alleged ringleader, Major General Godefroid Niyombare, is still at large, according to BBC News.<\/p>\n
Unrest began with protests starting April 26, one day after Nkurunziza announced he would be running to be reelected for a third term in office. Opponents said a third presidential term was unconstitutional. Some 600 protesters have been arrested.<\/p>\n
A coup was announced on May 13, but it appears to have failed as of the following day.<\/p>\n
Burundi is in southeast Africa and borders the Central African Republic, Tanzania, and Rwanda.<\/p>\n
The country is the second poorest in the world. According to the World Bank, around 60 percent of its 10.4 million people do not have enough food.<\/p>\n
{{Agencies}}<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{On Sunday morning, Pope Francis called for prayers for the people of Burundi, where violent clashes have broken out following a failed coup last week.} \u201cI also wish to invite you to pray for the dear people of Burundi, who are living in a delicate moment,\u201d the pontiff said in his May 17 address ahead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000068597,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-19540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000068597,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19540.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19540.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19540.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19540.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19540.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton19540.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000068597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19540"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=19540"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=19540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}