{The UN human rights chief has warned that an explosion of violence is close at hand in Burundi, sparked by the president’s decision to seek a third term and a crackdown by security forces and the youth wing of his ruling party responsible for dozens of recent killings.}<\/p>\n
Zeid Raad al-Hussein told the UN Security Council that “the risk to human life, and to regional stability and development, is high” as a result of escalating politically motivated violence and Burundi’s history of recurring bloodshed and atrocities.<\/p>\n
He said his office has documented dozens of killings in the past two months, most of them shootings of demonstrators and human rights defenders by the youth wing and security forces.<\/p>\n
Zeid urged the government to disarm the Imbonerakure youth wing of the ruling CNDD-FDD party immediately.<\/p>\n
One of the poorest countries in the world, the small Central African nation shares both a history of ethnic strife and a border with Rwanda, the scene of a genocide in 1994.<\/p>\n
Burundi has been hit by violence since the April announcement that President Pierre Nkurunziza would run for a third term in presidential elections set for July 15.<\/p>\n
Protesters say Nkurunziza must go because the constitution limits the president to two terms, but the president’s supporters say he is eligible for a third term because he was chosen by lawmakers – and not popularly elected – for his first term.<\/p>\n
Zeid said by videoconference from Geneva that the president’s decision “has undermined a decade of steady progress in building democratic institutions”.<\/p>\n
According to Associated Press news agency, he cited reports of demonstrators opposing a third term being imprisoned and subjected to torture and ill-treatment, as well as extrajudicial killings. He added that refugees fleeing Burundi have reported “targeted campaigns of intimidation and terror,” and say the Imbonerakure militia are “the main threat”.<\/p>\n
Source: AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{The UN human rights chief has warned that an explosion of violence is close at hand in Burundi, sparked by the president’s decision to seek a third term and a crackdown by security forces and the youth wing of his ruling party responsible for dozens of recent killings.} Zeid Raad al-Hussein told the UN Security […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000069142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-20099","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":2000069142,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20099.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20099.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20099.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20099.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20099.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20099.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20099","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=20099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000069142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20099"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=20099"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=20099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}