Burundi

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza awarded government workers a 34% pay rise as the small Central African nation celebrated Labour Day on Tuesday. The increment was in line with economic growth the country recorded in the past year, Nkurunziza said in a televised speech late on Monday.

Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda have adopted a joint military strategy to fight rebel groups operating in the war-scarred Great Lakes region, officials said on Thursday. Military commanders from the four countries said those operations would be planned and carried out in conjunction with the country where the rebels are based.

The African Union on Wednesday officially created a peacekeeping force of more than 1 500 South African troops for Burundi to help integrate the country’s last active rebel movement. The pan-African body has taken over from the United Nations in order to facilitate the integration of the Forces of National Liberation (FNL) into a broader peace process.

About 300 000 Burundians affected by floods since November last year are due to receive seeds from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to tide them over until the next harvest season, a WFP official has said. The agency will provide the aid between February 15 and March 15.

Thousands of people have been displaced by flooding in Burundi after heavy rains washed out homes near the capital over the weekend, local officials said on Monday. Officials estimated that at least 7 500 people had been left homeless in suburbs south and west of Bujumbura.”

The delayed implementation of a landmark truce between the Burundi government and the country’s last active rebel group is to kick off next week, officials said Sunday. The ceasefire deal principally calls on the insurgents to assemble in camps from where they will either be integrated into the army or police force or be demobilised.

Burundi police shot and killed an insurgent during a clash with a splinter faction of the country’s last active rebel group in the west of the tiny Central Africa nation, officials said on Wednesday. In the first such attack since the government signed a truce with the main faction of the National Liberation Forces this month, police shot dead the man late on Tuesday.

A global press freedom watchdog on Tuesday expressed outrage over a Burundi court’s sentence of five months in prison to a journalist for criticising the government and national police. Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) voiced ”deep concern about the future of democracy in Burundi” after Aloys Kabura was convicted and sentenced on Monday.

Burundi’s second vice-president resigned on Tuesday, blaming official corruption and human rights abuses for derailing promising progress toward peace in the Central African nation. Alice Nzomukunda told reporters in the capital she could not ”remain indifferent” to troubling developments in the country.

The main witness in an alleged plot to topple Burundi’s government on Thursday recanted his claims, saying he had made the accusations under torture and threats from authorities. Alain Mugabarabona’s surprise statement came three days after police arrested the country’s former president Domitien Ndayizeye in connection with the purported plot.

Burundi’s government has evidence linking a former president to an alleged plot to assassinate his successor and overthrow the government, a public prosecutor said on Wednesday. Domitien Ndayizeye was arrested on Monday, joining more than a half dozen people, including two former high-ranking officials and a dissident rebel, already jailed on suspicion of involvement in the plot.

Burundi has arrested an eighth person in a suspected plot to overthrow the Central African nation’s government in a bloody coup, an intelligence source said on Thursday. The authorities say they have evidence that former high-ranking politicians and a dissident rebel leader — all arrested this week — planned to kill President Pierre Nkurunziza in June with military support.

Three civilians were killed and about 10 others injured in a grenade attack in Burundi’s Bujumbura, capital blamed on the country’s last remaining active rebels, the army said on Monday. Army spokesperson Adolphe Manirakiza said National Liberation Forces insurgents threw grenades into two bars in Bujumbura’s north-eastern Gihosha neighbourhood late on Sunday.

The Burundian government announced on Friday it had agreed on the terms of a ceasefire with the country’s last active rebel movement, in spite of concerns by the insurgents over the sharing of government and military posts. Burundi’s Interior Minister Evariste Ndayishimiye said the government and the National Liberation Forces planned to sign the ceasefire agreement next week.

Burundi’s last active rebel group is demanding to have more than half of the slots in the country’s army in peace talks with the government that have repeatedly faltered on the issue of the military, officials said Monday. Representatives of the National Liberation Forces are also demanding the post of the national army chief as a pre-condition to reaching a permanent ceasefire.

Burundi’s last active rebel group shelled the capital, Bujumbura, overnight, injuring at least eight civilians, officials said on Thursday. This was the second such attack in less than a month. Both have occurred since the rebel group and the government began peace talks in Tanzania.

A new policy of free medical care for Burundian mothers and children was intended to improve their lives; instead it has crippled the nation’s health system. Public hospitals in Burundi have recorded double, sometimes triple, the number of patients since the presidential directive for free health services was implemented on May 1.

A journalist with Burundi’s state-run news agency known for his critical reports about the government has been jailed for allegedly inciting rebellion, an official said on Thursday. Aloys Kabura, a reporter with Agence Burundaise de Presse, was detained on Wednesday and is being held at a prison in the northern town of Ngozi.

Three days of torrential rain destroyed more than 1 000 homes, most of them mud huts, and unearthed 50 tombs in a rural section of Burundi, officials said Wednesday. The downpour started on Sunday and washed away 900 homes in Mpanda and 200 in Kinyinya, according to administrators in the region.

About 800 Rwandans out of nearly 20 000 who fled to neighbouring Burundi to seek refuge for fear of appearing before local genocide courts have voluntarily returned home in the past month, officials said on Tuesday. Didace Nzikoruriho, in charge of refugee affairs at Burundi’s interior ministry, said the gradual return was expected to end in the next three months.

Authorities in Burundi paraded about 200 alleged criminals, most of them suspected members of the country’s last active rebel group, before the public in the capital on Thursday. In an event criticised by human rights groups, the detainees were put on display at Bujumbura’s Prince Louis Rwagasore stadium as part of a campaign to end the insurgency of the National Liberation Forces.

The football fans were making a noisy exit from the city stadium as Esperence picked up a bundle of food and began walking along the river to visit her brother in hospital. It was 5pm on Saturday and Interstar had just played Muzinda FC in a friendly in Bujumbura.

Burundi’s last active rebel group launched mortars at the capital Bujumbura in an attack hours after the country’s army claimed to have killed 41 insurgents in recent weeks, the military said on Friday. The National Liberation Forces fired three 60mm shells on Bujumbura’s eastern Mutanga and Mutanga south districts late on Thursday, without causing casualties.

A split in Burundi’s last active Hutu rebel group intensified on Monday as a faction favouring peace talks with the government said the guerrilla’s hardline chief and several key allies had been replaced. A splinter group of the National Liberation Forces said longtime supremo Agathon Rwasa and two top aides had been suspended.

Water levels on Lake Tanganyika, the world’s second-deepest lake, have dropped more than 1,5m, creating problems at Burundi’s main port and raising concerns among environmentalists. An environmental specialist said climate change and deforestation are contributing to the lower lake levels.

Burundi’s new President Pierre Nkurunziza on Tuesday formed the country’s first government resulting from a political transition that ended last week aimed at reconciling majority Hutus and minority Tutsis. The naming of the new government caps a five-year peace process to end the tiny central African nation’s bloody 12-year civil war.