ICC prosecutors believe in Burundi “more than 430 persons were reportedly killed, at least 3,400 people have been arrested and over 230,000 Burundians forced to seek refuge in neighbouring countries,” Bensouda said.
The opposition, as well as civil groups and some of Nkurunziza’s own supporters, accuse him of violating the constitution and the Arusha peace deal that ended Burundi’s 1993-2006 civil war.
– New civil war? –
In a sign of the continuing violence, a Tutsi general and security advisor to the vice president was killed Monday in an attack by heavily-armed men in the capital Bujumbura, security sources said.
General Athanase Kararuza was dropping his daughter off at school in the northeastern Ghosha district, the high-ranking security source said. Kararuza, his wife and daughter were killed in the attack.
Kararuza, who had also served as deputy commander of an African Union-led peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic until late last year, had been recently named as advisor to Vice President Gaston Sindimwo, also a Tutsi.
An estimated 300,00 people died in the civil war pitting the then Tutsi-dominated army against Hutu rebels. Under the Arusha peace deal, there must be strict parity between the two ethnic groups.
But Robert Besseling of Exx Africa, a specialist intelligence company, warned that a year into the crisis, the country stood on the brink of a new civil war.
“Rival sides in the conflict have become entrenched and violence has become more brutal,” he said in a statement.
“In fact, in many ways, a civil war has already begun given the ethnic tinge to the most recent violence, especially in the countryside.”
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