Patrice Gahungu, spokesman of Burundi’s Union for Peace and Development (UPD-Zigamibanga) opposition party, was shot dead on Monday night, on his way home at Gasenyi in the capital Bujumbura. Clemence Nsabiyimbona, wife of Gahungu, said on Tuesday in Bujumbura that her husband was ambushed around 22:30 on his way home. She said the husband was coming from a bar close to the house, when she heard a lot of gunshots for a short time and was informed that he was killed. Nsabiyimbona said she walked to the place of the ambush, along with her neighbours, and found that Gahungu had already died. “The assassination of my husband must be politically motivated as two windows of his car were damaged by bullets. “My husband is alone in the car when he was ambushed in a road turn, just about 200 meters to his house,” she said. On May 23, UPD Chairman Zedi Feruzi was also killed near his house in Ngagara neighbourhood in the capital Bujumbura and his killers have not yet been identified. UPD-Zigamibanga is one of the main opposition parties in the east African nation. Most opposition leaders have fled the country as they are the target of killings. Since late April with the beginning of protests against the third term bid of President Pierre Nkurunziza, the Burundian civil society reported that more than 100 people had been killed, mainly in the capital, Bujumbura. Meanwhile, the residents in Kamenge and Cibitoke neighborhoods in the north of Bujumbura said they discovered four bodies on Tuesday morning. Pierre Nkurikiye, Police Deputy- Spokesman, said that a dead body found at the sixth avenue in Cibitoke, was identified as a driver at the head office of the ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD). He said that the other corpse discovered in Nyabagere River was identified as that of a bus driver in Musaga in the south of Bujumbura.Residents in Kamenge indicated that two other corpses were discovered behind the fence
Factfile
- Opposition parties are boycotting elections — including a
- presidential vote due July 15 — saying that it is not possible to
- hold a fair vote.
- Over 70 people have been killed in weeks of street protests
- that erupted after President Pierre Nkurunziza decided to seek
- a third term in office.
- Those protests were brutally suppressed, triggering an exodus
- of around 127,000 into neighbouring countries.Tensions
- between Burundi`s ethnic Hutu majority — some 85 percent of
- the 10 million population — and the Tutsi minority have boiled
- over repeatedly since independence from colonial ruler
- Belgium in 1962.
- Tensions between Burundi’s ethnic Hutu majority ? at least
- 85% of the 10 million population – and the Tutsi minority have
- boiled over repeatedly since independence from colonial ruler
- Belgium in 1962.
- In 1972, a failed Hutu-led uprising against Tutsi-dominated
- rulers sparked a wave of massacres.
- Later, the 1993 assassination of the first Hutu president,
- Melchior Ndadaye, triggered a civil war between the Tutsidominated
- army and Hutu rebels that lasted until 2006 despite
- several peace deals.
- Manufacturing is underdeveloped, and the country suffers
- from a poor transportation network and government
- corruption that stifles the private sector.
- The nation is green and fertile, but more than two thirds of the
- population live below the poverty line, with a gross average
- national income of just $260 (240 euros).
- World Bank data put 2013 gross domestic product at $2.7
- billion.
- Nkurunziza was first voted in by parliament in 2005, as part of
- the peace process to end the 1993-2006 civil war. In 2010 he
- was re-elected, this time by the people.
- Opponents say a third term would violate the constitution and
- jeopardise deals that ended civil war that stipulated
- presidents cannot rule for more than a decade.
