The Burundian army said that about 50 rebels from the National Liberation Forces were killed in heavy fighting on Wednesday that also left two government soldiers dead. The clashes were among the worst since hostilities resumed three weeks ago, dashing hopes of a breakthrough in peace efforts.
Burundi’s acute political deadlock and the collapse of peace talks have raised fears that the nation might fall back into the deadly conflict that devastated the country for more than a decade. "I’m scared because I have this feeling that the country is going backwards instead of forwards," said Cyrille Barekebuvuge, a shopowner in the centre of the capital.
Burundi’s new President, Pierre Nkurunziza, was sworn in Bujumbura on Friday as the country’s first elected leader after 12 years of war at a ceremony attended by several other African heads of state. The swearing-in also marked the end of an extended four-year transitional period that ushered in democratic rule in Burundi.
Scattered violence forced the early closure of more than 250 polling stations in Burundi on Friday, threatening to mar local elections critical to the country’s peace process after more than a decade of civil war. Burundian and United Nations officials stressed the violence was limited to areas in and around the capital.
Scattered violence at and near polling stations, including a deadly grenade attack and the shooting of a South African peacekeeper working for the United Nations, threatened to mar key local elections in war-ravaged Burundi on Friday.
Clutched in small groups and squatting uneasily outside a clinic in northern Burundi, the growing crowd of Hutus fleeing village genocide courts in Rwanda looked anything but optimistic. For the past two weeks, they have been trooping across the border in increasing numbers, fearing persecution or unfair treatment.
Burundi’s President Domitien Ndayizeye has ratified the country’s new power-sharing Constitution as the country slowly progresses towards putting behind it an 11-year civil war. The Constitution evens the balance between the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis who dominated the country since independence in 1962.