21 people found dead after attacks in Burundi

Attackers have stormed three military camps in Burundi’s capital, with 15 people reported killed in the ensuing firefights as gunfire and explosions rocked Bujumbura.

A soldier who had spoken to colleagues inside one of the bases in Bujumbura’s Ngagara district, told Reuters at least two soldiers and five attackers had been killed. Nevertheless, since they weren’t authorized to talk to the media, military officials, who insisted on anonymity, said three soldiers were killed.

“The unidentified militants struck the camps early Friday, with plans to seize ammunition and free detainees in the capital’s prisons”, Baratuza said.

Burundi has been plagued with unrest since April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term.

Residents said some of the dead had been rounded up by the police during the day after house-to-house searches on Friday, an allegation the police denied.

Friday’s attacks comprise the worst violence Bujumbura has seen in months, and the first on military installations since April.

In Musaga, close to a military college that was attacked by armed men early on Friday, a local official said there were more than a dozen corpses in the streets. There are reports of more bodies in other parts of the city. Nkurunziza won a disputed election in July.

It could not be independently verified who killed the 21 but another witness blamed government security forces saying they went after the victims in door-to-door searches.

The United Nations says violence since then has killed more than 240 people and prompted more than 200,000 Burundians to flee the country. One of the generals behind that coup said in July the group still aimed to topple the president.

Five of two soldiers and the attackers were killed in the assault at a camp in Ngagara neighborhood, a soldier said.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon meanwhile condemned the attacks by “groups of unidentified assailants”, his spokesman for Burundi said in a statement, adding that “such acts of violence can lead to a further destabilization of the situation”. Rwanda has the same ethnic mix.