African Union: Crisis in Burundi is of great concern

At least 400 people have been killed in the central African country since protests began in April against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s ultimately successful quest for a third term, while an estimated 220,000 people have fled to neighbouring states.

A statement issued by the AU Commission on peace and security said the Commission found the human rights and violence situation to be “of great concern” after visiting a detention centre and a hospital and taking testimonies of victims of the crisis.

Washington’s envoy to the United Nations complained Wednesday that the worldwide body was not doing enough to address the worsening crisis in Burundi.

The U.N.’s Human Rights Council holds a special session on Burundi on Thursday. Just weeks ago, the African country was elected as a member of the 47-member Human Rights Council based in Geneva. “A civil war between 1993 and 2005 cost over 300,000 lives and displaced more than 1 million people”, said Dieng.

Elisa Nkerabirori, a representative of Burundi’s Human Rights Ministry, spoke on her government’s behalf.

Last Friday, unidentified gunmen launched simultaneous attacks on three military barracks in the capital Bujumbura and another one at Mujejuru in Bujumbura Rural Province.

Following the attacks, security forces carried out “intensive house searches” in the Musaga and Nyakabiga neighborhoods, where they arrested and subsequently executed hundreds of young men, and took many others to unknown locations.

Zeid said the International Criminal Court should also be involved, a call backed by the U.N. Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, who said Burundi appeared to be “on the verge of a descent into violence that could escalate into atrocity crimes”.

Zeid too cautioned that “a frightened, uninformed population, on a diet of hate speech and paranoia, is one that may be recruited to the path of violence by either side of the current political impasse”, warning that the consequences would be “catastrophic”.

The crisis in Burundi alarms Western powers, which worry it, may slide back into conflict after emerging from an ethnically fueled civil war 10 years ago.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council last month that Burundi was on the brink of war but said there was no immediate need to deploy a U.N. peacekeeping force, encouraging the council to choose other options.