Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Bujumbura (Agenzia Fides) - There are between 150 and 200 people who were found dead in what appears to be extrajudicial killings in Bujumbura and in the "Rural Bujumbura", the suburban area of the capital of Burundi. This is what local sources told Agenzia Fides, who for security reasons have asked to remain anonymous.
"Officially, the death toll is 87, but civil society and others claim that the dead found in the streets are between 150 to more than 200. According to the authorities the people killed, mostly young people, were armed. But these weapons have not been displayed publicly", underline our sources.
"Most of these dead bodies were found with their hands tied behind their backs and hit by bullets to the head. A clear sign of extrajudicial execution". "The number of people killed in this way could be even greater, because the existence of mass graves is suspected", adds our source. The wave of extrajudicial killings (suspected by the police rather than the army) follows the coordinated assault against three military camps in Bujumbura on the night between 10 and 11 December (see Fides December 11 and 12 2015) by a strong group of rebels. "The assault was repelled but most of the rebels managed to return to their hiding places in the mountains", say our sources. "The majority of those killed are Tutsis. Demonstrations against the third term of President Pierre Nkurunziza occurred both in the neighborhoods of Hutu and Tutsi. The current crisis is therefore not ethnic but political".
According to Fides sources, "since the beginning of the crisis for the third term of the President in violation of the Constitution, on April 26, between 500 and 600 people were killed. In addition there are IDPs and Burundians forced to take refuge in neighboring Countries". (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 14/12/2015)
