President Pierre Nkurunziza Burundi’s Catholic bishops have expressed their concern at rising political intolerance in the east African country. “We are worried about the progressive increase of political intolerance which, in different parts of the country, provokes clashes,” the bishops said in a statement at the end of their four-day plenary meeting in the capital, Gitega.
Burundian authorities and ruling party youths “have carried out dozens of beatings, arbitrary arrests, disappearances and killings against real and suspected political opposition members”, Human Rights Watch noted earlier this month.
Tensions
Political tensions over many years have forced more than 374,000 Burundians to take refuge in neighbouring countries, including Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, the bishops said.
Many of the 192,000 Burundian refugees in Tanzania are in camps that lack adequate security and humanitarian assistance, they said.
“We have learned with pain of the insecurity in some refugee camps in Tanzania,” the bishops said.
Burundi has been in crisis since 2015, when President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term and was re-elected in elections boycotted by most of the opposition.