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Hundreds of Burundi students camp outside US embassy as unrest continues
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Hundreds of students from a Burundi university closed by the government have been seeking refuge outside the US embassy in the capital, amid escalating tensions before a presidential vote on 26 June.
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The east African state has been rocked by days of protests, triggered by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term, a move opponents say violates the constitution and a peace deal that ended an ethnically charged civil war in 2005.
Citing security fears, on Wednesday the government closed the University of Burundi, a prestigious institution where Nkurunziza taught physical education in the mid-90s. Students said they left halls on Thursday but feared making the journey home in case they were targeted by the government.
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“We are here for security because we have been chased from the campuses,” said Donation, a student who did not wish to give his surname. Hundreds of others were by the embassy perimeter wall.
Related: Protests rock Burundi as president seeks third term – in pictures
Next door, at a construction site, students queued for handouts of soup, bread and oranges. Several said they opposed Nkurunziza seeking a third term. They said Dawn Liberi, US ambassador to Burundi, visited them and said she had raised their plight with the authorities but did not promise them asylum, as some of them wanted. The embassy had no immediate comment.
Tom Malinowski, US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, told Nkurunziza on Thursday that Burundi risks “boiling over”, especially if political space was closed for opponents.
“We have urged the government not to let the situation get past a point of no return, because if that happens the gains of the last decade really will be at risk,” Malinowski said, adding there would be “consequences” if violence continued.
Bujumbura’s suburbs, scene of five consecutive days of protests, were calmer on Friday, a Labour Day holiday.
Nkurunziza warned of tough measures against those who organised and took part in street protests.
“A judiciary commission has been set up to investigate that insurrectional movement. Within one month, the commission will issue its report. Severe sanctions will be taken against those who will be found guilty,” Nkurunziza said in a Labour Day message broadcast on Friday but recorded on Thursday.
The crisis is being closely watched in a region still scarred by the 1994 genocide that killed more than 800,000 people in neighbouring Rwanda, which, like Burundi, is divided between ethnic Tutsis and Hutus.
Burundi’s electoral commission started accepting applications to stand for president on Friday, but it was not immediately clear if any opposition figures have submitted bids. They have until 9 May to do so.
Diplomats say the opposition leader, Agathon Rwasa, who, like Nkurunziza, is a former Hutu rebel commander turned politician, stands the best chance of challenging the president.
Rwasa has trodden a cautious path during the protests that erupted on Monday, criticising the government’s heavy-handed tactics and defending people’s right to rally, but refraining from calling for mass protests.
Analysts say Rwasa does not wish to give the government – which describes the protests as an illegal “insurrection” – justification to detain him and exclude him from running for presidency.
The constitution and the Arusha peace accord limit the president to two terms in office, but Nkurunziza’s supporters say he can run again because his first term, when he was picked by legislators and not elected, does not count.
