I have been there last year. Someone told me that he feared trouble, even violence if Pierre Nkurunziza would run for a third time. Never did I, naively maybe as I'm, have expected such terrible news so quickly:
Every day has seen bodies of young men found on Bujumbura’s street, notably in key opposition areas such as Nyakabiga, Musaga, Cibitoke, Jabe and Mutakura. Witnesses report young men have been taken from their homes and executed, sometimes by unidentified’ attackers, others by police, security forces or militia. An Amnesty International briefing noted how as police went from house to house arresting, looting and killing victims. These included a disabled man, a teenage egg seller, domestic worker, and mobile-phone seller. A number of those killed were children including a 15-year old boy shot in the head as he ran to escape the regime killers.
On 11 December, a reported ninety people were killed (local observers put the number at nearer 200), after the military said it repulsed attacks on three army bases in Bujumbura. In the capital, it is noticeable that those specifically targeted in what the government euphemistically calls "operations against the enemy" are young Tutsis soldiers, as well as alleged Hutu opponents of the government. The targeted murder of young Tutsi recruits at ISCAM (Burundi's "West Point"), where they were arrested and taken away to be eliminated, suggests a planned and systematic attempt to purge the army of all Tutsi elements. Tutsi recruits and junior officers are now reported to be in hiding or remaining at home rather than go into their barracks for fear of what may happen to them.
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