The leader of a Burundi opposition party was killed on Saturday by unknown assailants in the nation’s capital, Bujumbura, local media reported.
Iwacu, a prominent news organization in Burundi, reported on its Web site that Zedi Feruzi of the UPD-Zigamibanga party was slain late on Saturday in a drive-by shooting in which at least one of his bodyguards was also killed.
Feruzi was outside his house when a car approached and its occupants sprayed him with bullets, Iwacu reported.
Photo: EPA
His alleged killing in Bujumbura’s Ngangara District is likely to raise tensions in the Central African nation that has been hit by political unrest since the announcement late last month that Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza would seek another term in office.
The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the killing in a statement from a spokesman, saying it threatens to “entrench mistrust and trigger further violence.”
There have been almost daily street protests in Bujumbura over Nkurunziza’s third-term bid, a decision that also sparked a failed move by some senior military officers to oust the president.
At least 20 people have died and 431 have been wounded in street protests against the president’s decision to run in the elections scheduled for June 26.
Protesters say Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term is illegal because the Constitution allows for two five-year terms, and some protesters are vowing to stay on the streets until Nkurunziza rescinds his decision to seek a third.
Nkurunziza maintains that he can seek re-election because the legislature — not the electorate — selected him for his first term.
Amid the unrest, the international community has been urging Nkurunziza to delay the elections, and the US has expressed disappointment over Nkurunziza’s decision to seek more time in office.
Up to 200,000 Burundians have fled to neighboring countries, citing fears of political violence. Many have sought refuge in unsanitary refugee camps in Tanzania, where they also face a cholera outbreak in which more than 30 people have died in recent days. Others have fled to Congo and Rwanda.
Burundi, a poor nation that exports mostly coffee and depends heavily on foreign aid, experienced an ethnically driven civil war from 1993 to 2003 that killed at least 250,000 people.
Observers say that, while the current crisis is mostly political, it could boil over into ethnic strife if political violence over the president’s third term intensifies.
Nkurunziza, an ethnic Hutu, first came to power in 2005 and was re-elected unopposed in 2010 after an opposition boycott.
Ban’s statement encouraged parties in Burundi to pursue a UN-led political dialogue that resumed on Thursday.
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