– Echoes of civil war –
Months of street protests against Nkurunziza have devolved into frequent armed attacks, with gunfire regularly erupting at night in Bujumbura and dead bodies a frequent sight on the city’s streets.
Attacks targeting the security forces have escalated, with rebels armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacking police convoys and targeting government installations.
Residents of Bujumbura have become used to the unrest, and despite the scale and severity of the most recent violence the city was calm on Sunday with life returning to normal.
The UN Security Council met Friday following a request from France, with UN chief Ban Ki-moon saying the attacks risked triggering “a further destabilisation of the situation” and urging all sides to hold back, according to his spokesman.
UN figures released before Friday’s violence showed at least 240 people had been killed and more than 200,000 had fled abroad since May, raising fears of a return to civil war, a decade after the end of a 1993-2006 conflict between rebels from the Hutu majority and an army dominated by minority Tutsis.
Some 300,000 people were killed in the war, which began a year before a genocide of mostly Tutsis in neighbouring Rwanda.
The Security Council has said that sending UN peacekeepers to the nation remained an option, and stressed the need for urgent political dialogue.
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