Twenty attackers were reportedly captured, while five soldiers were wounded.
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“The army has defeated them seriously”, the spokesman said, while Bujumbura residents reported continuing gunfire into the afternoon. Road blocks were set up in part of the city, residents said.
The violence in Burundi is unnerving for a volatile region which only two decades ago saw a genocide in next-door Rwanda.
Till now, battle lines in Burundi’s crisis have followed the political divide.
Burundi has been gripped by instability since April when the ruling party named President Pierre Nkurunziza – in power since 2005 – as its candidate for the presidency. Rwanda has the same ethnic mix.
Nkurunziza won the election, which was boycotted by the opposition, in July- human rights activists say more than 240 people have been killed in protests and attacks since April, while more than 220,000 are believed to have fled the country. “We are living fear”, said Claire Biguda, a resident of Nyakabiga neighbourhood, who was locked up in her house along with her husband and two children.
“Situation is returning to normal as firearms are seized, many Sindumuja assailants killed or arrested”, Willy Nyamitwe, the presidential media adviser, wrote on Twitter. An officer at sites in the south of the city said three soldiers were killed in those locations.
The crisis led to a failed coup in May. One of the generals behind that coup said in July the group still sought to topple the president, raising worries that the poor country was slipping into conflict again. Other plotters were caught and face trial.
Experts voiced fears that the army, which was restructured after the civil war to include both professional troops and rebel fighters, might fracture, igniting a broader conflict.
The attackers wanted to steal weapons and use them free prisoners, Baratuza said.
“After more than two hours of clashes, the army repulsed the southern attack, while virtually all the attackers were killed in Ngagara base”, the officer said.
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“This is a very worrying escalation because it is genuine military, or paramilitary, operations taking place in the capital”, said one European diplomat.
