UN chief: Burundi leader promises to release 2000 prisoners

Global leaders hope to revive attempts to find a solution to the unrest that began in April when President Pierre Nkurunziza made a decision to run for a controversial third term, which he went on to win in July.

Ban’s visit comes after authorities canceled arrest warrants issued for opposition figures, including Leonard Nyangoma, head of the Cnared coalition that protested Nkurunziza’s re-election, and Gervais Rufyikiri, a former vice president.

“We want to seize upon this convergence of global efforts to break the cycle and try to generate positive movement in Burundi”, said French Ambassador Francois Delattre.

Ban, who landed in the afternoon, is due to hold talks with President Pierre Nkurunziza on Tuesday after meeting with leaders of political parties and civil society in a bid to bring fresh impetus to stalled efforts to resolve the 10-month-old crisis.

The Burundi government will also release 1,200 people it has detained, the United Nations chief said, while the presidency on its Twitter account said that 2,000 prisoners would be freed.

Opponents and supporters of Nkurunziza have targeted each other in gun, rocket and grenade attacks.

In Kenya, the Secretary-General was briefed by the Director-General of the UN Office in Nairobi (UNON), Sahle-Work Zewde, and Kenyas Minister for Education, Fred Matiangi.

Mr Ban is expected to leave Burundi after the talks and visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the second leg of an African tour that will also take him to South Sudan, where civil war erupted in December 2013.

Over 400 people have been killed, more than 240,000 have left the country and violent attacks have become a daily routine in the months since, raising fears of a return to the civil war fought between 1993-2006.

Thacien Sibomana, spokesman for the opposition’s UPRONA party, was more cautious about the announcement.

France hopes the statement will be adopted before a group of African presidents, including South Africa’s Jacob Zuma, travels to Burundi on Thursday for talks with Nkurunziza. He will be accompanied on the two day visit by the leaders of Mauritania, Senegal, Gabon and Ethiopia.

Nkurunziza has already rejected African Union plans to send in peacekeepers, saying he would see their arrival as an invasion.

During a visit by Security Council ambassadors to Burundi in January, Nkurunziza dismissed concerns that his country could slide into ethnic killings, similar to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Rwanda has denied allegations it is training and arming rebels opposed to Nkurunziza.