Denise bucumi-nkurunziza

Pierre nkurunziza death
Evariste ndayishimiye
Pierre nkurunziza death

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Pierre Nkurunziza obituary

Pierre Nkurunziza, who has died unexpectedly aged 55, was the outgoing president of Burundi whose 15-year-rule, particularly towards the end, was marked by brutal repression.

In 2015, Nkurunziza’s decision to run for an unconstitutional third term led to an outbreak of protests and violence that spread across the country. He responded with brutal violence. Over the next two years, his youth-led militia group, known as the Imbonerakure, as well as various state security forces, killed more than 1,200 Burundians in an attempt to quash street protests. Four hundred thousand more fled the country. A born-again Christian, Nkurunziza spent much of that time organising prayer meetings.

When donors cut aid, he retaliated by barring most foreign media outlets from reporting inside Burundi. When the international criminal court (ICC) opened an investigation into crimes against humanity in 2017, he responded by withdrawing Burundi from the Rome statute; the first nation ever to do so. In 2019, he went a step further and shut down the UN’s human rights office in

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Pierre Nkurunziza

President of Burundi from 2005 to 2020

Pierre Nkurunziza (18 December 1964 – 8 June 2020) was a Burundian politician who served as the ninth president of Burundi for almost 15 years from August 2005 until his death in June 2020.

A member of the Hutu ethnic group, Nkurunziza taught physical education before becoming involved in politics during the Burundian Civil War as part of the rebel National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Conseil National Pour la Défense de la Démocratie – Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie, CNDD–FDD) of which he became leader in 2000. The CNDD–FDD became a political party at the end of the Civil War and Nkurunziza was elected president. He held the post controversially for three terms, facing bloody opposition, sparking significant public unrest in 2015.

He announced his intention not to stand for re-election in 2020 and instead ceded power to Évariste Ndayishimiye, whose candidacy he had endorsed. He died on 8 June 2020 shortly before the official end of his term. He was the long

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Burundi: Pierre Nkurunziza’s death marks the end of an era

The 9 June announcement of the death of Burundi’s outgoing President Pierre Nkurunziza stunned a nation and the world. Against the backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the president’s sudden illness and passing has prompted many questions, especially given the government’s reported downplaying of Burundi’s infection rate. In death as in life, Pierre Nkurunziza remains deeply controversial and divisive. As the country mourns President Pierre Nkurunziza, Burundians also grieve thousands of victims and survivors who suffered under his government.

Pierre Nkurunziza was born in December 1964 in Ngozi province to Eustache Ngabisha, a Hutu parliamentarian and governor who was killed during the 1972 massacres. Nkurunziza went on to excel in his studies and was working as a lecturer at the University of Burundi in 1995, when there was a massacre of Hutu students on campus. Having narrowly survived an attempt on his life, Nkurunziza left shortly afterwards to join the rebellion.

In February 1998, Amnesty International launc