Burundians on Tuesday received sudden news of the outgoing
President Pierre Nkurunziza’s demise.
Flags in Burundi were lowered to half-mast on Wednesday,
with fear engulfing the country which is said to be grappling with complex
legacy of Nkurunziza’s 15-year rule.
Reports shows that the country’s economy is mired in poverty
following a cut off by international donors.
The 55-year-old ascended to power, from being a sports
teacher, after becoming a leader in the ethnic Hutu rebellion during the
country’s 1993-2006 civil war.
The war left some 300,000 people dead.
Nkurunziza took elective post as president in 2005 and was re-elected
in a general election in 2010.
The UN documented widespread rape, torture and murder of
political opponents by ruling party activists and state security forces during
his tenure, a move that sparked international donors to cut off help.
He run for the third term in 2015 against constitutional
provision, a move that sparked a coup and violence in the country –leaving at
least 1,200 people dead while some 400,000 flying the country.
The socio-political and economic turmoil exhibited during
Nkurunziza’s rule saw Burundi ranked by the World Bank as one of the world’s
three poorest countries.
Nkurunziza withdrew his country from the International
Criminal Court in 2017, and in 2019 he shut down a local UN rights office that
was investigating killings, enforced disappearances and other humanrights
abuses in the country.
As the world grapples with the coronavirus pandemic,
Nkurunziza chose to distance Burundi from the World Health Organizations
directives on how to curb the virus, alongside ignorance to the East African
Community measures and directives.
Most recently, the country expelled World Health
Organization (WHO) officials from operating in the capital Bujumbura.
His wife, Denise Bucumi, was airlisted by AMREF ambulance to
the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on May 21 over claims that she is seeking Covid-19
treatment.