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Nairobi — Battles in Burundi have killed at least five people, with bodies found dumped on the street and insurgents hurling grenades into bars, local officials and witnesses said on Wednesday.
The killings are the latest violence in now near daily gun battles.
Two people were killed and six wounded in a grenade blast in a bar in Mutimbuzi, about 10km east of the capital Bujumbura, on Tuesday night, senior local official Damien Barindambi said.
Another grenade attack, in Mugongo Manga, about 30km east of the capital, wounded three people shortly after, officials there said.
In Bujumbura, the bodies of three youths were found early on Wednesday on the streets of the city’s Mutakura district, witnesses said, adding that with no blood seen, the corpses were likely dumped overnight.
Burundi’s government blames a string of attacks on “armed criminals”, but the UN has warned that Burundi risks sliding back into civil war after a dramatic rise in violence.
President Pierre Nkurunziza, an ex-rebel turned born-again Christian who believes he has divine backing to rule, won a third term in power in July, despite concerns over the legality of him serving a third consecutive mandate.
UN observers said the polls were neither credible nor free. Since the elections, clashes between gunmen and the security forces have become a near daily event.
Meanwhile, Burundi is on the brink of civil war and will need regional mediation to establish a peace process between the government and opposition to prevent further bloodshed, a US envoy said.
Thomas Perriello, the US special envoy for Africa’s Great Lakes region, said on Thursday that Burundi is “facing a real possibility of civil war,” though there is still “a window, no matter how small, to get a peace process going”.
“The most urgent thing is a regionally mediated dialogue that will deal with the crisis itself,” said Perriello.— AFP.
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