United Nations human rights officials have said they will investigate the deaths earlier this week of civilians during a police raid in Burundi, as observers described Monday’s parliamentary elections as not “free or credible”.
Advertisement
The opposition says Nkurunziza does not have the right to seek a third term, citing Burundi’s constitution, which limits the number of terms a president can serve to two. However, due to the instability caused by the Burundian Government’s disregard for the Arusha Agreement and its decision to proceed with flawed parliamentary elections, the United States is unable to conduct peacekeeping and other training in Burundi.
“Episodes of fieriness and explosions gone before and also came with election daytime pursuits”, Haq said….
The elections on June 29 went ahead in the African country despite an global outcry and are slated to be followed by a presidential vote on July 17.
Some voting stations were also attacked by grenades, according to the police.
At least six people, including one policeman, were killed in Burundi’s capital on Wednesday, witnesses and a police spokesman said.
The mission concluded “that the environment was not conducive for free, credible and inclusive elections”.
Burundi police on Wednesday raided a Bujumbura home seeking activists opposing President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for an unconstitutional third term in office.
An AFP reporter who later entered the area after the shooting had ended saw the bodies of six people killed, including a moneychanger in his sixties and his two sons, shot in the head.
The US called on President Nkurunziza to place the welfare of Burundi’s citizens above his own political ambitions and participate in dialogue with the opposition to find a peaceful solution to the nation’s political crisis.
The council has been struggling for months to agree on a common stance on the Burundi crisis, with Russian Federation insisting it is an internal matter and African countries reluctant to take a strong position.
Advertisement
The Emergency Summit will be preceded by an Emergency Meeting of Ministers/Cabinet Secretaries of the EAC Partner States scheduled to take place on Sunday, 5 July 2015 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Some 140,000 people have fled Burundi to neighboring countries.
