UN human rights body opens session on Burundi violence

The U.N.’s top human rights body is discussing the rising violence in Burundi, with the United States leading a diplomatic push aiming to deploy a mission of experts and launch an investigation of abuses.

The seat of the Burundi delegation is pictured before a special session of the Human Rights Council on the situation in Burundi in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said on Thursday that “Burundi is at bursting point, on the very cusp of a civil war” which could have “ethnic overtones” similar to past conflicts in Burundi.

Zeid said that the violence had forced tens of thousands of people, including many human rights defenders and journalists, to flee the country.

Burundi has been in turmoil since the April announcement that President Pierre Nkurunziza would seek a third term in office, which he won in a disputed election in July. “A civil war between 1993 and 2005 cost over 300,000 lives and displaced more than one million people”, said Dieng.

Zeid said the country is on a trajectory back to its “deeply troubled, dark and horrendously violent past”.

He called on the global community to get its act together, adding: “The time for piecemeal responses and fiddling around the edges is over”. He called for border controls, a government effort to disarm pro-government militias, efforts to stop the flow of weapons into Burundi, and consideration of “the use of drones” as one way to help monitor borders.

Elisa Nkerabirori, an official at Burundi’s Ministry of Human Rights, urged the Council to condemn the opposition, which she said was recruiting children in refugee camps and had attempted a coup d’état and attacks on government officials.

The text was expected to be voted on and approved later Thursday.

The United Nations and the African Union have started preparing for the possible deployment of global peacekeepers in case the violence worsens.

Ban said he would send his special adviser Jamal Benomar to the region for talks with the Burundi government, other countries and the African Union on ways to defuse a crisis that has spurred fears of a return to full-scale ethnic conflict. The country’s demographic makeup – consisting of a Hutu majority and Tutsi minority – mirrors that of neighboring Rwanda, which witnessed genocide in 1994.