Instead, the African Union is to send envoys for more talks, although previous negotiations have done nothing to end months of conflict.
Advertisement
African heads of state have not agreed on the sending of a prevention and protection force in Burundi, with some African states are opposed to sending peacekeepers to Burundi without its consent.
Burundi has been in chaos since President Pierre Nkurunziza began his pursuit of a third term previous year. He did not name any nations.
AU Peace and Security Council chief Smail Chergui said, after the bloc’s meeting in Ethiopia: “We want dialogue with the government, and the summit made a decision to dispatch a high-level delegation”.
Raila said despite the clear danger facing the people of Burundi who have been left on their own, the AU Summit concentrated its energies on how to pull Africa out of the ICC. About 85 percent of Burundi’s population of 10.4 million are of the Hutu ethnicity, while about 14 percent are Tutsi.
Many students told The Associated Press they feel the suspension of breakfast, which went into effect Monday, is an injustice and may affect their performance in class. “It is a no-go area under any conditions”, Burundi’s Foreign Minister Alain Nyamitwe told reporters in Addis Ababa.
It highlights sensitivities among some African leaders, who experts say fear that sending troops against a government’s will could set a precedent that be turned on them in future. However, Burundi’s crisis has not escalated into a conflict of that scale the AU has decided it can not justify unilateral action.
“It was never the intention of the African Union to deploy a mission to Burundi without the consent of Burundian authorities”, Ibrahima Fall, AU Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, told French radio RFI.
Nkurunziza’s quest to remain in power sparked weeks of street protests that were brutally suppressed, and a failed coup.
“The longer this situation continues, the more people will be killed and affected”, said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Earlier this week, human rights group Amnesty International published satellite images it said were believed to be five mass graves near Burundi’s capital, where security forces were accused of killing scores of people in December.
Advertisement
Rwanda hosts the next AU summit, slated for July.
