Topic: Burundi civil war fears as president accused of campaign of murder (Read 283 times)

As president Pierre Nkurunziza continues to cling to power, Amnesty International has documented arbitrary arrests, disappearances and deaths

Innocent Ntawumbabaye had obeyed police orders to open his front door when two officers walked wordlessly into his home and shot him several times in the head.

The 44-year-old milk seller wasn’t the only victim that day. On 11 December, after an attack on military installations in the capital, security forces loyal to president Pierre Nkurunziza responded by summarily executing 87 civilians in the space of a few hours.

Nkurunziza, a former rebel turned president, announced in April that he would run for a controversial third term, in a move many observers say contravened a 2005 peace deal that ended the 12-year civil war which claimed 300,000 lives.

His decision plunged the small central African country into a political crisis, prompting weeks of demonstrations by young activists in the capital demanding that the 52-year-old president step down.

An African Union proposal to deploy 5,000 troops to restore peace was rejected by the Burundian authorities, with Nkurunziza last week warning that forces failing “to respect Burundi’s borders” would be attacked. Peace talks scheduled for Wednesday in neighbouring Tanzania have been delayed, with no fixed date given for when they might take place.

Human rights campaigners say Nkurunziza has now responded to any opposition to his third term with a blanket campaign of murder and intimidation in neighbourhoods where protests against his third term bid have been most intense.

“There is an atmosphere of real fear and impunity,” Rachel Nicholson, a researcher at Amnesty International who visited the country in early December, told the Guardian.

“Arbitrary arrests, disappearances and cordon-and-search operations accompanied by the killing of civilians have become routine at a time when many independent human rights organisations have been forced out of the country and people do not know who to turn to for redress,” she said.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/05/burundi-pierre-nkurunziza-police-protest-crack-down