Timeline Burundi
Return to home
Mennonite Central Committee: http://www.mcc.org/regions/burundi.html
Map: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/africa/Burundi_sm97.gif
Bujumburu: http://cityguide.lycos.com/assist/cityguide/articles/223_t.html
Travel: http://www.excite.com/travel/countries/burundi/
Factbook: http://198.76.84.1/HORN/burundi/misc/burfact.html
UPenn: http://www.fellesraadet.africainfo.no/africaindex/africaindex1/countries/burundi.html
A former Belgian colony with 85% Hutu, 14% Tutsi people and 1% Twa.
(SFC, 4/12/96, p.A-12)(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1901 Feb 23, Britain and Germany agreed on a boundary between German East Africa [later Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi] and Nyasaland [later Malawi].
(HN, 2/23/98)(WUD, 1994, p.593,990)
1923 The kingdoms of Ruanda and Urundi, a part of German East Africa, were conquered by British and Belgian troops during WWI, and became a Belgian mandate in 1923.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A12)(HNQ, 11/4/99)
1962 Jul 1, Burundi gained independence from Belgium. The UN trust territory of Ruanda-Urundi in east-central Africa was divided into the independent nations of Rwanda and Burundi.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A12)(http://africanscoutjamboree.org/en/history-of-burundi)
1972 The Tutsi-led government in Burundi killed some 100,000 Hutus.
(SFC, 8/31/99, p.A14)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)
1987-1993 Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi paratrooper, became the military president of Burundi.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A4)
1993 Jun, Melchior Ndadaye was elected president in the first democratic election in Burundi.
(SFC, 5/15/99, p.A14)
1993 Oct 21, Burundi’s first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated by Tutsi soldiers. 5 soldiers were sentenced to death for the murder in 1999. The military coup caused 525,000 Hutu's to flee. Civil war followed and over the next dozen years some 300,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
(SFC,8/22/96, p.E5)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A12)(SFC, 5/15/99, p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burundi_presidential_election,_1993)(Econ, 4/16/11, p.65)
1993 Pierre Buyoya paved the way for Burundi elections and handed the presidency to Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, elected by the Hutu majority.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1994 Apr 6, The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed on a return trip from Tanzania in a mysterious plane crash near Kigali, Rwanda; widespread violence erupted in Rwanda over claims the plane had been shot down: Agatha Uwilingiyimana, Rwanda’s and Africa’s 1st female PM, Cyprian Niayamira (Ntaryamira), president of Burundi (1993-94) and Juvenal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda (1973) were killed along with the French aircrew. In Rwanda the Interhamwe, an extremist organization, and the Rwandan armed forces, FAR, launched a massacre of Tutsis and sympathizers that killed some 800,000. [see Aug 1, 1997] A French report in 2004 concluded that Paul Kagame, Tutsi rebel leader, was behind the crash. In 2010 a Rwandan government-commissioned inquiry said Rwandan Hutu soldiers shot down the Hutu president's plane and sparked the slaughter of more than 500,000 people. In 2012 a French judge determined that the missile fire that brought down the plane and sparked the Rwanda genocide came from a military camp, and not Tutsi rebels. This finding supported the theory that Habyarimana was killed by extremist members of his own ethnic Hutu camp.
(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)(AP, 4/6/99)(SFC, 2/11/04, p.A8)(AP, 1/12/10)(AFP, 1/11/12)
1994 Pres. Sylvestre Ntibantunganya took office in Burundi.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1994 Seven Rwandan refugee camps were created in Burundi and held some 250,000 people.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1995 Feb, Prime Minister Antoine Nduwayo took office in Burundi.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1996 Jan, The Burundi president warned that the country may be on the brink of a possible collapse due to fighting between the ethnic fanatics in the Hutu majority and the Tutsi-dominated army.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan, Tutsi militants closed down the Burundi capital in a general strike. They accused the president of backing massacres by Hutus after the killing of a predecessor in 1993.
(WSJ, 1/17/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr, The Red Cross said more than 55,000 people have been driven from their homes by ethnic fighting that intensified last month. More than 100,000 have been killed since 1993 in the conflict between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis. The fighting occurred in the capital city of Bujumbura. 235 civilians died when the Burundi army attacked villages at Buhoro.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-8)(SFC, 5/13/96, p.C-12)
1996 May 3, A handwritten account reached the Burundi capital that described the massacre of 375 people at the Kivyuka village market by government soldiers angry over recent rebel attacks on local power line towers. An army spokesman denied the charges.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 16, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, the Burundi’s Hutu president, has called his army “paralyzed and useless" and given it a week to stop ethnic violence between Tutsi armed forces and Hutu rebels.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 30, Suspected Hutu rebels of the Council for the Defense of Democracy killed at least 61 and wounded 25 Tutsis in eastern Burundi.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)
1996 Jun 4, In Burundi 3 Swiss Red Cross workers were ambushed and killed while delivering supplies near the village of Mugina. The Tutsi-dominated Uprona Party denied any role and said the killings were the work of gangs of the Coalition for the Defense of Democracy, the main Hutu rebel group.
(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)(SFC, 6/6/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun 13, A Burundi army report claimed that 50 Hutu rebels were killed in an attack on a training camp.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A16)
1996 Jul 4, Unidentified gunmen killed 80 people in an attack on a tea factory 15 miles northeast of Bujumbura, Burundi.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 21, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed 320 Tutsis, mostly women and children, at a refugee camp 45 miles north of the capital.
(WSJ, 7/22/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 25, In Burundi the military seized power and named former president Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, as president. Hutu officials sought refuge in foreign embassies. Burundian Hutus fled to Zaire's South Kivu province, base of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy, an extremist Burundi Hutu movement backed by Zaire.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 26, UN sources said that 268 Hutu civilians were killed in Burundi’s Gitega province. The Tutsi army said Hutu rebels attacked a coffee factory in Giheta.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, In Burundi a Tutsi-led army killed at least 30 Hutu rebels in retaliation for an attack on a coffee plantation. Independent sources said that Hutus set fire to the factory and rice plantation in Giheta to justify a retaliatory attack on villages where Hutu rebels were thought to have taken refugees. Villagers said Tutsi soldiers massacred about 1,000 Hutus as they roamed from village to village in Gitega province.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 13, The last 2 commercial flights left Burundi as the outside world tightened sanctions to punish the new military regime.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 20, In Burundi Pierre Buyoya sacked his army chief, Jean Bikomagu, who was implicated in the 1993 assassination of the first Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye. He also fired 2 more powerful military officers.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E5)
1996 Aug 27, The last Rwandan refugee camp in Burundi closed.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug, After the Burundi coup of Jul 25, former Tanzanian Pres. Julius Nyerere led East African leaders to impose sanctions on Burundi and force Buyoya to restore democratic rule.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 3, Hutu guerrillas attacked an army garrison and local government headquarters in northern Burundi.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A10)
1996 Oct 21, In Murambi village, Burundi, some 300 (258-435) Hutu refugees returned from Zaire and were killed as they sought refuge in a village church.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A8)(SFC, 12/12/96, p.C2)
1997 Jan 5, In Burundi the Tutsi-led army attacked and killed hundreds of Hutus in a dispute over land at Bukeye in central Burundi.
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 11, Soldiers shot and killed 126 Burundian Hutu refugees trying to break out of a holding camp in the northeast. Seven soldiers were arrested for the slayings.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Feb 21, It was reported that Burundi troops killed more than 150 civilians in reprisals for rebel attacks. 100 people were killed at Mugara and fifty near Maramvya.
(SFC, 2/22/96, p.A12)
1997 Apr 16, African leaders of 7 nations eased their embargo on Burundi to alleviate local suffering.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A12)
1997 May 13, An outbreak of Typhus was reported in Burundi. Some 20,000 cases in 3 northwest provinces were reported by March, mostly in Hutu regroupment camps set up by the Tutsi-led military.
(WSJ, 5/13/97, p.A1)
1997 May 29, It was reported that the Tutsi-led army killed more than 40 Hutu rebels that included Hutu students kicked out of Bujumburu Univ. in 1995.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 1, A UN report from this day was made public in 2000 and cited Tutsi informants claiming that they helped to shoot down the airplane carrying Rwandan Pres. Juvanal Habyarimana on Apr 6, 1994.
(SFC, 3/2/00, p.A14)
1997 Oct 20, Soldiers of the Tutsi army packed 40 civilians into a rural school in the region of Kibezi and tossed a grenade inside. All were killed. Major Andre Nijongabo, a Burundi army commander, defended the incident claiming that the dead were “genocidal terrorists." Hutu rebels had burned 18 schools a week ago.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)
1997 Marie-Louise Sibazuri launched her Burundi radio drama "Our Neighbors Are Our Family." In 1998 she moved to Belgium and directed the program from there.
(WSJ, 3/16/00, p.A1)
1998 Jan 1, Some 1-2 thousand Hutu rebels attacked a Burundi military base and near the main airport and 150 civilians, 30 rebels and 2 soldiers were reported killed. Later reports said as many as 300 were killed and that the army had sealed up the area.
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.A1)(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A14)(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 12, In Burundi Hutu rebels attacked army positions and at least 55 people were killed.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1988 Jan 21, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed 45 people in 2 attacks, and 20 rebels died in a subsequent battle with the army.
(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 28, Burundi Colonel Firmin Sinzoyiheba, the Tutsi minister of defense, was killed in a helicopter crash in the Gihinga Hills.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Burundi military leader Pierre Buyoya was sworn in as president by the democratically elected parliament.
(SFC, 6/12/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 28, In Burundi 34 people were killed south of the capital.
(SFC, 10/29/98, p.A14)
1999 Jan 19, Rebels based in Tanzania killed 59 civilians in Makamba, Burundi. In Muresi Hill 76 civilians were killed.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E9)
1999 Jan 28, In Burundi officials reported that at least 178 civilians had been killed over the last 2 weeks in clashes between rebels and government troops.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E9)
1999 May 14, In Burundi 5 soldiers were sentenced to death for the 1993 murder of Pres. Melchior Ndadaye.
(SFC, 5/15/99, p.A14)
1999 Jul 16, In Burundi peace talks ended in a deadlock.
(SFC, 7/17/99, p.A14)
1999 Jul, Burundi government troops began herding Hutu farmers around Bujumburu into 58 makeshift camps to deprive rebels of support. Cholera, dysentery and malnutrition soon became rife in the camps.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A9)
1999 Aug 29, In Burundi Hutu militiamen attacked 2 neighborhoods outside Bujumbura and killed at least 26 civilians.
(SFC, 8/30/99, p.A14)
1999 Aug 31, It was reported that Bryan Rich of America and Alexis Sinduhije of Burundi, founders of the country's first independent news outlet, were making a documentary called "Breaking the Code," featuring interviews with Hutu and Tutsi participants in the 1993 slaughter.
(SFC, 8/31/99, p.A12)
1999 Sep 24, In Burundi the government reported that Hutu rebels had hacked to death 11 civilians in 2 separate attacks.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A14)
1999 Sep 26, In Nyambuye, Burundi, 30 people were killed in a Catholic church. Unidentified men in uniform opened fire while mostly Hutu worshipers prayed.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C14)
1999 Sep 28, It was reported that the Burundi army has recently forced over 200,000 villagers into makeshift camps without food or water and that 100 people had died over the past week.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C14)
1999 Oct 12, In Burundi Hutu rebels attacked a UN humanitarian convoy and killed 9 people at the Muzye refugee camp in Rutana.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 22, In Tanzania it was reported that some 500 people per day were fleeing into the country from Burundi as fighting in Burundi intensified.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 1, African leaders chose Nelson Mandela as the new mediator for talks on ending the 6-year civil war in Burundi.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D2)
1999 Dec 20, In Burundi Gabriel Gisabwamana, a Hutu member of parliament, was shot and killed by soldiers at a checkpoint after the 10 p.m. curfew.
(SFC, 12/22/99, p.C11)
1999 Dec 31, Burundian soldiers killed at least 43 people including children in the Kabezi commune in Bujumbura Rural province.
(SFC, 1/800, p.A10)
2000 Jan 16, Nelson Mandela addressed peace talks in Arusha, Tanzania, and admonished the leaders of Burundi for having failed their people and all of Africa.
(SFC, 1/20/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 21, In Tanzania African presidents and European ministers appealed to Burundi's leaders to negotiate a swift end to the civil war.
(SFC, 2/22/00, p.A9)
2000 Mar 3, In Burundi the authorities under int'l. pressure began dismantling 6 of nearly 60 camps holding hundreds of thousands of Hutu civilians.
(SFC, 3/4/00, p.C1)
2000 Apr 25, In Burundi 66 people were reported killed in renewed fighting between Hutu rebels and government troops.
(SFC, 4/26/00, p.A16)
2000 Jun 7, Burundi Pres. Pierre Buyoya made concessions to end the 7-year war. He agreed to integrate the Tutsi-led army and to close down the regroupment camps by July 31.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.C3)
2000 Jul 22, In Burundi uniformed men killed 53 men, women and children in the village of Butaganzwa, when they refused to go to a government regroupment camp.
(SFC, 8/1/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 6, In Burundi Hutu rebels ambushed a truck carrying military cadets and 28 soldiers and 6 civilians were killed near Nyabiraba village.
(SFC, 8/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 28, Pres. Clinton stopped in Burundi where Tutsi minority parties refused to sign a deal with the Hutu majority. Clinton urged the parties to work for peace.
(SFC, 8/29/00, p.A6)
2000 Dec 28, Hutu rebels ambushed a commuter bus outside Bujumbura and killed 20 passengers.
(SFC, 12/30/00, p.A10)
2001 Apr 9, In Burundi villagers were caught in crossfire fighting between the army and Hutu rebels. 11-30 people were killed and thousands were forced to flee their homes.
(SFC, 4/12/01, p.C2)
2001 Apr 18, The Burundi army put down a coup attempt by junior officers opposed to Pres. Buyoya’s negotiations with Hutu rebels.
(SFC, 4/19/01, p.A11)
2001 Jun 3, It was reported the Burundi was poised for war due to conflicts between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A16)
2001 Jul 23, In Burundi Pres. Buyoya survived a coup attempt by Tutsi soldiers and sealed a power-sharing accord with Hutu politicians. The Arusha accord called for Buyoya to lead for 18 months followed by a Hutu president for another 18 months with elections to follow.
(WSJ, 7/24/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/24/01, p.A6)
2001 Sep 28, It was reported that clashed in Burundi between government forces and Hutu rebels had killed at least 19 civilians and 22 soldiers over the last week.
(SFC, 9/28/01, p.D6)
2001 Oct, Some 150 political exiles returned to participate in the 3-year transition to democracy. Some 700 South African soldiers massed in Bujumburu to help protect the exiles.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2001 Nov 6, In Munini, Burundi, 24 civilians were reported dead from fighting between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi dominated army.
(SFC, 11/7/01, p.A16)
2001 Nov 9, Hutu rebels in Burundi abducted 80 teenage boys and 4 teachers from 3 schools in Ruyigi. Forced recruitment was believed to be the reason. Hundreds of youths escaped and at least 3 were left dead.
(WSJ, 11/8/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/12/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 7, Int’l. donors promised Burundi over $760 million for reconstruction and to fight AIDS. About 11.3% of the population was infected with HIV.
(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A7)
2001 Dec 25, Burundi Maj. Gen. Gahiro reported that 515 Hutu rebels and 28 soldiers had been killed in the Tenga region since Nov 26. He said fighting the area was liberated but that fighting continued.
(SFC, 12/26/01, p.A8)
2002 Jan 15, Fighting began in Burundi between the army and Hutu rebels. At least 60 people were dead after a week.
(SFC, 1/26/02, p.A8)
2002 Mar 19, In Burundi fighting between the Tutsi dominated army and Hutu rebels forced over 16,000 people from their homes over the last 2 days.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A10)
2002 Jun 4, National Liberation Forces rebels, one of 2 rebel Hutu groups, attacked military positions near Bujumburu and caused thousands of people to flee the area.
(SFC, 6/5/02, p.A13)
2002 Jun 11, More than 40 Burundian refugees returning home from Tanzania after years in exile died when the truck carrying them overturned, an official said.
(AP, 6/12/02)
2002 Jun 21, In Burundi a court has sentenced 11 people to death and 16 others to life imprisonment for taking part in massacres that followed the 1993 assassination of Burundi's first democratically elected leader.
(AP, 6/21/02)
2002 Jun 27, Burundian rebels said they had repelled a major government offensive against bases in the Kibera National Park, saying 35 government soldiers had been killed in five day of fighting.
(AP, 6/27/02)
2002 Jul 26, The Burundian army claimed it has killed at least 500 Hutu rebels during fighting over the last two weeks, while suffering only 15 losses.
(AP, 7/26/02)
2002 Aug 30, In Burundi the army reportedly killed 48 Hutu rebels in clashes outside Bujumbura.
(SFC, 9/5/02, p.A11)
2002 Sep 9, In Burundi 183 civilians were killed by uniformed men in an area of heavy fighting between government troops and rebels. On Sep 18 the government promised an investigation.
(AP, 9/18/02)
2002 Oct 7, In Burundi 2 smaller factions of the main rebel movements signed a cease-fire aimed at ending the 9-year civil war.
(AP, 10/8/02)
2002 Nov 2, In Burundi at least 15,000 people have fled their homes as fighting between the army and rebels escalated despite peace talks.
(AP, 11/2/02)
2002 Nov 22, Burundi's largest rebel faction launched a mortar attack on Bujumbura from the surrounding hills, causing thousands of residents to flee their homes in the northern part of the city.
(AP, 11/22/02)
2002 Dec 3, In Burundi Pres. Pierre Buyoya and Pierre Nkurunziza, leader of the main faction of the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, or FDD, agreed to a cease-fire in their 9-year civil war (effective Dec 30), in theory leaving only one rebel group fighting in a conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people.
(AP, 12/3/02)
2003 Jan 15, In Burundi 2 weeks of fighting between the Tutsi-dominated army and two rebel groups has displaced more than 30,000 people in two provinces.
(AP, 1/15/03)
2003 Mar 22, Burundi's hardline Hutu rebel group expressed satisfaction with its first round of peace talks in Switzerland.
(AP, 3/22/03)
2003 Mar 26, The Burundian army attacked a rebel stronghold in a Kibira forest with mortars and artillery, killing 68 insurgents. Rebels said only 2 fighters were killed.
(AP, 3/27/03)
2003 Apr 2, Burundi said Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa will send 3,500 peacekeepers to enforce a truce ending nearly 10 years of civil war.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 8, In Burundi battles started between the Tutsi-dominated army and the rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy, or FDD, after the army tried to intercept insurgents moving into Gitega province. More than 6,000 people fled their homes in response.
(AP, 4/12/03)
2003 Apr 19, In Burundi a mortar shell apparently fired from rebel positions in the hills northwest of Bujumbura crashed into a house, killing three children and wounding a woman and another child. The latest fighting has forced 50,000 people to flee their homes.
(AP, 4/19/03)
2003 Apr 30, Burundi's Tutsi minority handed over the presidency to Domitien Ndayizeye of the Hutu majority as part of the peace process aimed at ending 9 1/2 years of civil war.
(AP, 4/30/03)
2003 May 11, The Burundi army killed 23 Hutu rebels during fighting in central Burundi, but the insurgents claimed the dead were civilians.
(AP, 5/13/03)
2003 Jul 8, In Burundi Hutu rebels fought their way into part of the capital, trading gun, mortar and grenade fire with the Tutsi-dominated army. Thousands fled their homes.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 10, In Burundi recent fighting left an estimated 170 people killed according to a UN estimate. 6,000 to 7,000 others had been forced to flee their homes.
(AP, 7/12/03)
2003 Sep 21, The latest outbreak of fighting between Hutu rebels and the army in Burundi's decade-long civil war has killed at least 12 people on the outskirts of Bujumbura.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Oct 27, In Burundi fighting between government soldiers and Hutu rebels has forced more than 5,000 people to flee their homes in the hills surrounding the capital of Bujumbura.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Nov 2, Burundi's president and main rebel leader signed a peace agreement, but efforts to end the decade-long civil war were threatened by renewed fighting between Tutsi-dominated government troops and other Hutu rebels.
(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Nov 3, It was reported from Burundi that a decade of civil war as well as fighting in neighboring Congo had decimated the once 300-strong herd of hippos whose habitat is the marshy Ruzizi River that flows from the northern end of Lake Tanganyika. In August, the World Wildlife Fund warned that 185 miles to the north, only 1,300 hippos of the 29,000 recorded 30 years ago remained in and around Lake Edward.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 10, In Burundi Hutu rebels bombarded the capital with rockets, killing 5 people, destroying part of the Chinese Embassy and striking the home of a U.S. military attache.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 16, Burundi's government signed a comprehensive power-sharing plan with the Hutu FDD, country's largest rebel group, a major step toward ending a 10-year war that has killed at least 200,000 people.
(AP, 11/16/03)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.44)
2003 Nov 19, Rebel holdouts in Burundi clashed with government troops in a capital slum, killing 11 people, mainly noncombatants caught in the crossfire.
(AP, 11/20/03)
2003 Dec 22, An international human rights group criticized a peace agreement giving soldiers and rebels temporary immunity from prosecution for atrocities committed against civilians in Burundi's 10-year civil war.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 29, In Burundi gunmen killed Monsignor Michael Courtney, the pope's ambassador, firing on his car as he was returning from a funeral.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec, In Burundi the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), the biggest Hutu rebel group, joined Burundi's transitional government. FNL rebels under Agathon Rwasa (39) continued to lob mortar shells into Bujumbura.
(Econ, 12/6/03, p.41)
2004 Jan 12, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed 17 people, including five soldiers, in attacks northwest of Bujumbura over the last 2 days.
(AP, 1/13/04)
2004 Feb 24, An earthquake shook Burundi, killing three people and destroying at least two dozen homes.
(AP, 2/24/04)
2004 Aug 13, The FNL, a Burundian Hutu rebel faction, raided Gatumba camp, a UN refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting and hacking to death 160 people. The camp sheltered Congolese ethnic Tutsi refugees, known as the Banyamulenge.
(AP, 8/14/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.37)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.44)
2004 Nov 18, The UN Security Council opened an extraordinary two-day session in Nairobi, the first outside its New York headquarters in 14 years. Sudan topped the agenda. Great Lakes regional foreign ministers approved a pact for greater cross-border cooperation and confidence-building. It was due to be adopted at a summit in Dar es Salaam.
(AP, 11/18/04)(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Nov 19, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged leaders of Africa's blood-soaked Great Lakes region to implement a peace plan that could herald a "new era" for millions of Africans.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Burundi created a national army out of former army and seven former rebel movements.
(AFP, 10/22/11)
2005 Feb 28, Burundians voted on a new constitution that enshrines Hutu control by allotting them 60% of parliamentary seats with 40% for Tutsis.
(WSJ, 3/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 13, Burundi began forced repatriation of thousands of Rwandan refugees, who feared reprisals at home. The UN condemned the action.
(WSJ, 6/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 4, Burundi's main Hutu ex-rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), won a comfortable victory in legislative elections, taking 58.23% of the vote.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Aug 19, Pierre Nkurunziza (40), a former Hutu rebel leader, was chosen by lawmakers as Burundi's president, culminating an internationally mediated effort that hopes to bring peace to a central African nation wrecked by a dozen years of ethnic war. Burundi’s 12-year civil war left as many as 300,000 people dead.
(AP, 8/20/05)(Econ, 3/29/14, p.50)
2005 Sep 19, Classrooms and chairs were scarce at crowded Burundian primary schools as 500,000 children, nearly double last year's enrollment, showed up for the first day of classes following the elimination of fees.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Dec 31, A first group of UN peacekeepers from Mozambique left Burundi as part of a phased withdrawal of troops that will end in December next year.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2006 Jan 1, East African leaders said that millions of people in the region faced hunger because poor rains had affected vital crops and pasture. Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania faced acute food shortages.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2006 Jan 5, The UN said around 2,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees have arrived in Burundi in the past month, many saying they feel insecure in Rwanda or are being refused permission to cultivate their land.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Feb 27, In Burundi a government official acknowledged that rogue soldiers and police officers have executed and tortured suspected rebels and civilians.
(AP, 2/27/06)
2006 May 29, Burundi's only hold-out rebel group began talks with the government in an effort to end the central African country's 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 Jun 17, Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza left to sign a cease-fire agreement with the country's last rebel group in neighboring Tanzania as his government works toward ending a 12-year conflict.
(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 18, Burundi's government and the country's last rebel group agreed, while meeting in Tanzania, to end hostilities and sign a comprehensive cease-fire deal in two weeks.
(AP, 6/19/06)
2006 Jun 30, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to conclude its peacekeeping mission in Burundi on Dec. 31 and replace it with a UN office to help promote development and democracy in the central African nation.
(AP, 6/30/06)
2006 Aug 6, In Burundi gunmen hurled a grenade at a bar frequented by army officers, killing four people. Authorities said the attack was an attempt to undermine the government.
(AP, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 21, Burundi police arrested former President Domitien Ndayizeye, apparently in connection with an alleged plot to overthrow the tiny central African country's government.
(Reuters, 8/21/06)
2006 Sep 5, Burundi Vice-President Alice Nzomukunda resigned over corruption and human rights abuses that she says are hampering her nation's progress.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5316690.stm)
2006 Sep 7, Burundi's government and the country's last rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL) signed a permanent cease-fire as the central African nation emerges from 12 years of civil war.
(AP, 9/7/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.57)
2006 Oct 17, The United States said it plans to take in about 10,000 Burundian refugees from Tanzania, many of whom fled their landlocked nation as far back as 1972.
(Reuters, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 25, A rights group said Burundi's spy agency has executed 38 people and arbitrarily detained 200 others since the Central African nation's new government came to power. New York-based Human Rights Watch accused President Pierre Nkurunziza’s year-old government of failing to prosecute those accused of extra-judicial killings.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Nov 30, The East African Community (EAC) said Rwanda and Burundi have been accepted as members, expanding the regional economic bloc to five nations. The EAC previously grouped Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, which hoped to transform the region into a political federation.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Dec 15, In Kenya 11 African heads of state attending the 2nd International Conference on the Great Lakes Region signed a landmark $2 billion (1.5-billion-euro) security and development pact to forestall fresh violence in the area.
(AFP, 12/15/06)
2007 Jan 20, The UN’s food agency said some 800,000 Burundians face a serious food crisis after devastating floods ravaged several regions of the tiny central African nation.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Feb 26, The World Vision humanitarian group said that more than 50% of children in refugee camps around Africa's volatile Great Lakes area have experienced some form of sexual abuse. The data, collected in camps in the Burundi, Congo (DRC), Tanzania, northern Uganda and Rwanda, said widespread poverty made children vulnerable to abuses.
(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 28, Burundi said that it will send 1,700 peacekeepers to Somalia as part of an 8,000-strong African Union force, while the first Ugandan contingent prepared to leave for the war-torn nation.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 15, Human Rights Watch released a report that said Children in Burundi suffer serious abuses in prison, including torture, rape and food shortages, in a criminal justice system that treats them as adults.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 18, The UN said a first group of Congolese refugees, who escaped a 2004 massacre at a camp in Burundi, left for the US to start a program to resettle more than 500 people.
(AFP, 3/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda adopted a joint military strategy to fight rebel groups operating in the war-scarred Great Lakes region.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 May 18, A group of 88 Burundians who have lived as refugees in neighboring Tanzania for up to 35 years became the first of some 8,500 to head to the US for a new life.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 23, The UN human rights commissioner said that Burundi has agreed to set up a tribunal to try people suspected of genocide and war crimes during its 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 25, In Burundi 61 countries and international organizations promised 656 million dollars (488 million euros) during a donors' roundtable in the capital Bujumbura. The World Bank considers Burundi, where 70% of the population lives below the poverty line, the world's third-poorest nation.
(AFP, 5/25/07)
2007 Jun 19, President Jakaya Kikwete said Tanzania will shut camps housing 150,000 refugees from Burundi by the end of this year as the war in the neighbouring central African country is over.
(AFP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jul 21, Jean Berchmans Ndayshimiye, the military leader of Burundi's last rebel group (FNL), escaped back to the bush, sparking fears of renewed civil conflict.
(AFP, 7/22/07)
2007 Jul, Rwanda and Burundi became members of the East African Community (EAC), which included Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
(AP, 11/17/07)(Econ, 9/5/09, p.52)
2007 Aug 19, Simultaneous grenade attacks were launched on the homes of five Burundian politicians who recently criticized the president, injuring three but failing to harm the targets.
(AFP, 8/19/07)
2007 Aug 28, Africa's Great Lakes nations (Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda) vowed to eliminate rebel groups roaming their territory and spurring insecurity in the continent's most volatile region.
(AFP, 8/28/07)
2007 Sep 11, Six Congolese soldiers were detained by the Burundian navy for repeatedly attacking fishing boats on Lake Tanganyika and stealing their catch.
(AFP, 9/12/07)
2007 Oct 16, Burundi's last active rebel group said it will shun a weekend meeting to put the central African nation's derailed peace process back on track as the South African mediator was biased.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 20, Burundi's last active rebel group was urged to implement a 2006 ceasefire as it boycotted a meeting aimed to put the central African nation's derailed peace process back on track.
(AFP, 10/20/07)
2007 Nov 14, Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza announced a new unity cabinet drawing members from two leading opposition groups in a bid to end months of political deadlock in the troubled African nation.
(AFP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 14, The EU reached an accord with the East African Community (EAC) states of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. They will enjoy duty free, quota free access to the EU for all products, except sugar and rice, from January 1. Originally established in 1967, the EAC collapsed a decade later amid diverging economic philosophies. It was resurrected in 2000 as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda agreed to create an EU-style common market for their 90 million citizens. Rwanda and Burundi became members in July this year.
(AP, 11/17/07)(Econ, 9/5/09, p.52)
2007 Dec 23, In Somalia a first contingent of 100 Burundian peacekeepers deployed in the capital, joining 1,800 Ugandan troops in an African Union force, AMISOM, that is still well short of the personnel strength needed to help restore order. Insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked an Ethiopian army base in northern Mogadishu, triggering a deadly nighttime clash that sent stray mortar rounds crashing into homes. At least five Somalis were killed and eight wounded in the crossfire.
(AP, 12/23/07)(AFP, 10/22/11)
2007 Dec 24, In southwestern Somalia gunmen threw grenades at the home of the regional police chief, killing two of his grandchildren and a bodyguard but not their target. Burundi deployed a 2nd contingent of 92 peacekeepers to Mogadishu, to bolster an African Union force.
(AP, 12/24/07)(AP, 12/25/07)
2008 Jan 20, The final 210 members of the first battalion of Burundian soldiers to be deployed in Somalia as part of an African Union peace-keeping force left Bujumbura for Mogadishu. Burundi is expected to deploy a total of 1,700 soldiers in Somalia, alongside around 1,600 troops from Uganda who have been in the capital Mogadishu since March.
(AFP, 1/20/08)
2008 Mar 14, Five Burundi insurgents and a government soldier were killed in a clash with the army in the north of the war-wracked central African country's capital.
(AFP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 18, The World Food Program (WFP) made a six million dollar appeal to feed some 90,000 Burundian refugees in Tanzania who expect to return to the central African country in 2008.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2008 Apr 17, In Burundi suspected rebels attacked the capital, Bujumbura. A series of attacks killed at least 17 people.
(AP, 4/18/08)(WSJ, 4/19/08, p.A1)
2008 May 18, In Burundi as the government and rebels sought unsuccessfully to reach agreement in negotiations to reinstate a 2006 ceasefire deal, the army attacked National Liberation Forces (FNL) rebel positions south of Bujumbura.
(AFP, 5/20/08)
2008 May 25, Burundian officials said the army killed three rebels near the capital over the weekend, the latest in a series of violent clashes in the central African nation.
(AFP, 5/26/08)
2008 May 26, Burundi's government and last active rebel group signed an unconditional ceasefire agreement, raising hopes of a definitive end to the small central African nation's 15-year civil war.
(AP, 5/26/08)
2008 May 30, Agathon Rwasa, the exiled leader of Burundi's last rebel group, returned to the capital to begin implementing a stalled deal seen as the final obstacle to peace in the tiny central African country.
(Reuters, 5/30/08)
2008 Jun 8, Burundi's top rebel leader and the government's chief negotiator pledged to work to end 15 years of civil war as they arrived in South Africa for talks on the country's peace process.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Jul 16, The United States signed a pair of agreements to boost trade and investment ties with countries in southern and eastern Africa. These included the Trade, Investment and Development Cooperation Agreement with the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU), which includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland; and the Trade Investment and Framework Agreement (TIFA) with the East African Community, which includes Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Oct 14, Burundi said it has completed its deployment of another 850 soldiers to Somalia, bringing to about 3,400 the total number of African Union peacekeepers stationed there. Burundi had already deployed some 850 soldiers to Somalia as part of AMISOM (African mission in Somalia).
(AP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 16, Around one million Burundian children under the age of five suffer chronic malnutrition, the UN food agency announced as it marked World Food Day in the tiny central African nation.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Nov 17, In Somalia witnesses said African Union (AU) peacekeepers from Burundi have started moving into positions usually manned by Ethiopian troops in the capital Mogadishu, as part of the ongoing Djibouti peace process.
(AFP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 22, Burundi's parliament adopted a new set of laws abolishing the death penalty for the first time in the troubled central African country.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Dec 2, A Burundi soldier serving with African Union forces in Somalia was killed in fighting with Islamist insurgents in the war-torn capital Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/3/08)
2008 Dec 4, In Burundi a summit was held in Bujumbura stating the position of the Great Lakes region on the implementation of the peace agreements signed at the Dar es Salaam summit of 2006 in Tanzania.
(http://allafrica.com/stories/200812040216.html)
2009 Jan 2, In Burundi an 8-year-old albino boy was hacked to death in front of his mother and made off with his arms and legs. The body parts of a single albino, to be used in witch doctor potions, fetched about $1000. This attack followed another on a 6-year-old girl.
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.50)
2009 Mar 13, In Burundi an albino man was murdered and dismembered overnight by suspected smugglers with links to Tanzanian witch doctors, the fourth such case in a month in the central African nation.
(AFP, 3/13/09)
2009 Jul 24, Burundi army officials said 3 of its soldiers serving with African Union peacekeepers in Somalia have died of a mysterious illness in a Kenyan hospital where more than 10 others are being treated.
(AFP, 7/24/09)
2009 Aug 1, Burundi said it has deployed a third battalion of 850 soldiers to Mogadishu to reinforce the African Union peacekeeping mission there. With the new troops, more than 5,000 soldiers from Burundi and Uganda are now taking part in the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which began in March 2007 and has cost the lives of 17 Burundian soldiers.
(AFP, 8/2/09)
2009 Oct 5, In Burundi 2 days of clashes began as government forces fired live rounds in the air to deter hundreds of Congolese refugees from returning home. Some 900 refugees had decided to return home on foot rather than be transferred to a new camp further away from the border with Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 10/7/09)
2009 Oct 23, Somali Islamist rebels threatened to attack the capitals of Burundi and Uganda, the two central African countries that have deployed peacekeeping troops to prop up Somali's transitional government.
(AFP, 10/23/09)
2009 Nov 20, In Tanzania members of the East Africa Community (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda) signed a common market agreement in Arusha, headquarters of the EAC.
(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/21/content_12513712.htm)
2009 Nov 30, Interpol and the Kenya Wildlife Service said African authorities over the last 3 months had raided shops, intercepted vehicles at checkpoints and used sniffer dogs to detect and seize over 3,800 pounds (1,768kg) of illegal elephant ivory in a six-nation operation. This involved the wildlife authorities, police and customs departments of Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(AP, 11/30/09)
2009 Dec 30, In Burundi the last South African soldiers from the African Union Special Task Force still operating in Burundi completed their mission and left the country for good to return to South Africa.
(AFP, 12/31/09)
2010 Mar 4, In Rwanda 2 grenade blasts wounded 16 people in the capital, in the second wave of grenade attacks to hit Kigali in two weeks. On March 6 authorities said Deo Mushayidi, a former member of the then rebel group Rwandan Patriotic Front that ended the 1994 genocide, was arrested in neighboring Burundi. The government has also accused two former senior army officers now exiled in South Africa of being behind the attacks.
(AP, 3/5/10)(AFP, 3/6/10)
2010 May 3, In Burundi attackers chopped off the limbs of a 5-year-old albino boy and pulled out his mother's eye, killing them over the belief that their body parts would bring wealth and success. Ten assailants armed with guns and grenades killed Desire Vyegura (5) and his mother, Susann Vyegura. Thoma Vyegura, who was not albino, was also killed while trying to protect his daughter and grandson.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 19, The Burundian government said in a statement that it had given Neela Ghoshal, a Human Rights Watch researcher, until June 5 to leave the country. Burundi is due to hold its first round of elections after nearly 16 years of civil war May 23. Presidential polls are scheduled for June 28.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 24, Burundians turned out in droves to vote in local polls marking the first phase of an electoral marathon, the first of a series of polls in which the tiny African nation will also vote for representatives to parliament and its next president.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 Jun 1, In Burundi 5 presidential candidates in upcoming elections said they're withdrawing from the race because of rigged voting. The candidates announced their withdrawal following a May 24 vote that opposition parties said were rigged by the ruling party, which received 64 percent of votes. Four rounds of voting remain.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 4, Burundi's main Tutsi party followed five opposition parties in pulling out from the central African nation's June presidential poll, leaving serving leader Pierre Nkurunziza as the sole candidate.
(AFP, 6/5/10)
2010 Jun 21, In Burundi the president of the ruling party's youth league was assassinated by unknown gunmen.
(AFP, 6/22/10)
2010 Jun 22, In Burundi 2 people were reported killed and several wounded overnight in the latest spate of attacks to rock the East African nation amid a tense electoral crisis.
(AFP, 6/22/10)
2010 Jun 27, Burundi's police overnight arrested six senior officials from an opposition party, as the troubled central African nation prepared for a controversial presidential election.
(AFP, 6/27/10)
2010 Jun 28, Burundi began voting for a president. Incumbent Pres. Pierre Nkurunziza was the lone candidate.
(AP, 6/28/10)
2010 Jun 30, In Burundi politicians boycotting the elections dismissed the results as a sham.
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, It was reported that grenade attacks in Burundi have killed 8 people and wounded almost 50 over the last month.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 22, Burundi was labeled as the most corrupt country in East Africa in a survey by Transparency International. Rwanda was found to be the least corrupt among the five countries in the region.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Aug 26, Interpol said police have seized about 10 metric tons of counterfeit medicines and arrested 80 people in a sweep across eastern Africa. Authorities across Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar took part in the bust.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Sep 24, Agathon Rwasa, a former rebel chief in Burundi, appealed by letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon to intervene and prevent the east African nation from falling again into violent conflict. Rwasa headed the ex-rebel National Liberation Forces, which became a political party in 2009 after a peace deal ended Burundi's 13-year civil war.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Nov 19, In the Republic of Congo 8 countries signed a convention to limit the spread of weapons in central Africa, but three countries opted out. Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, The Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe all signed. Burundi, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda did not sign.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Some 100,000 Twa pygmies remained in the Great Lakes region of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and CongoDRC. Most of them were barred from their ancestral forests including the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, which was turned into a national park in 1991.
(Econ, 9/25/10, SR p.11)
2010 Burundi’s population stood at about 9 million. Tax revenues were around $9 million.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.48)
2011 Mar 4, Two Nairobi-based diplomats said at least 43 Burundian and 10 Ugandan troops have been killed in Somalia since Feb. 18. A major offensive against Islamist militants began on Feb 19.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 14, Burundi said it has deployed an additional 1,000 soldiers for the African Union force protecting the Somali government.
(AFP, 3/14/11)
2011 Jul 1, Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza appealed for the first time to opposition leaders in exile to return home and begin a dialogue, in a speech to mark the country's independence.
(AFP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 4, In Burundi an armed gang raided two police posts in Bujumbura and dropped leaflets saying they were members of a rebel group called FRONABU-Tabara (Burundi National Front). Four suspects were arrested.
(AFP, 7/6/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Burundi lawyer Suzanne Bukuru was arrested and imprisoned for helping French journalists get an interview with victims she is representing in a rape trial involving a Frenchman Patrice Faye (58). On July 25 lawyers in Burundi announced a week-long strike in protest at the arrest of Bukuru for "complicity in espionage."
(AFP, 7/25/11)
2011 Jul 19, In Burundi at least nine people died in clashes between unidentified "armed gangsters" and security forces in northwest Cibitoke province. Two soldiers, a police officer and six "gangsters" were among the dead.
(AFP, 7/20/11)
2011 Jul 25, A court in Burundi found Frenchman Patrice Faye (58) guilty of raping five teenagers, giving him a 25-year jail sentence and a fine of 14,000 euros ($20,000). Faye was accused of raping five girls aged 13 to 17, students at a school he set up for poor children. He denied the charges and said a doctor had confirmed that three of his accusers were still virgins.
(AFP, 7/25/11)
2011 Aug 11, Burundi and South Africa signed several cooperation deals including in defense, education and agriculture during Pres. Zuma's visit to the central African country.
(AFP, 8/11/11)
2011 Sep 2, In Somalia Malaysian cameraman Noramfaizul Mohd Nor was killed in Mogadishu by 4 Burundi peacekeepers. The 4 were later discharged from the force and faced trial in Burundi.
(AP, 9/26/11)
2011 Sep 16, Burundi opposition leader Agathon Rwasa, suspected to be behind a spate of violent incidents, accused state security forces of massacring and torturing his supporters.
(AFP, 9/16/11)
2011 Sep 18, In Burundi armed men burst into a pub in Gatumba. One wounded man said an attacker yelled: "Make sure there's no survivors." Survivor Jackson Kabura said the men entered wearing military fatigues. The bar shooting left 39 people dead. The accused later claimed the massacre's "sponsors" were top security official General Maurice Mbonimpa, deputy police chief General Gervais Ndirakobuca and the commander of a special police unit, Colonel Desire Uwamahoro.
(AP, 9/19/11)(AFP, 9/23/11)(AFP, 12/13/11)(Econ, 3/10/12, p.60)
2011 Oct 20, In Somalia pro-government forces supported by foreign troops chased al-Shabab out of Mogadishu’s northernmost neighborhood, Deynile, in a dawn offensive. Al-Qaida-linked militants claimed to have killed 70 foreign African Union peacekeepers but an eyewitness said many of the bodies put on display were likely Somali government soldiers. An AU spokesman the next day said that the insurgents had stolen uniforms and dressed up scores of their own dead. The AU said 10 soldiers were killed, including 6 from Burundi, with two missing after intense fighting with insurgents. A week later it was reported that 51 Burundian soldiers were killed in the clash.
(AP, 10/20/11)(AP, 10/21/11)(AFP, 10/22/11)(AP, 10/28/11)
2011 Nov 21, Burundi security forces shot dead 18 "armed bandits" in clashes in the eastern province of Cankuzo, part of a new rebellion based in Ruvubu National Park.
(AFP, 11/22/11)
2011 Nov 22, A Burundi rights group, the Government Action Observatory (OAG), said government-backed death squads have killed more than 300 members of a former rebel group and opposition supporters in covert operations over the past five months.
(AFP, 11/22/11)
2011 Nov 27, Gunmen in Burundi murdered Sister Luckrecija Mamic, a Croatian nun, and an Italian charity worker in an apparent botched robbery and kidnapping. Sister Carla Brianza was later shot dead while Sister Carla Brianza, an Italian nun, fought off her attackers and escaped with relatively minor wounds. Two men, aged 20 and 24, were arrested for the attack after a shootout.
(AFP, 11/28/11)
2011 Nov 28, Burundi told delegates at a global anti-landmine summit in Phnom Penh that it had cleared its territory of landmines, becoming the 18th state party to do so. Myanmar was the only country recorded as laying new landmines last year, but the Intl. Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said it has since been joined by Israel, Syria and Libya, bringing the current global use of landmines to its highest level since 2004.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2012 Jan 11, Alexis Sinduhije, the head of Burundi’s opposition Movement for Solidarity and Development, a former journalist, was arrested in Tanzania upon his arrival there from Uganda. On Jan 21 Burundi admitted that it had asked for the exiled Burundian opposition leader to be arrested in Tanzania and extradited to face murder charges.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Burundi admitted that it had asked for an exiled Burundian opposition leader to be arrested in Tanzania and extradited to face murder charges. Alexis Sinduhije, the head of the opposition Movement for Solidarity and Development, a former journalist, was arrested in Tanzania's economic capital Dar es Salaam on January 11 upon his arrival there from Uganda.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 24, Tanzanian police freed Burundian opposition leader Alexis Sinduhije, who was arrested two weeks ago in Dar es Salaam at Burundi's request. Sinduhije was expelled to Uganda.
(AFP, 1/24/12)
2012 May 2, Burundi blocked Human Rights Watch from holding a press conference to release a report on the country's political violence, which it blamed on state agents and armed opposition groups.
(AFP, 5/2/12)
2012 May 5, In Burundi an armed gang kidnapped, killed and dismembered overnight an albino girl (15) in Burundi's 18th such slaying in less than four years. Albinos Sans Frontieres said the government was failing to protect albinos and said everyone sentenced to prison in the killings had escaped.
(AFP, 5/6/12)
2012 Jun 20, A Burundian court sentenced journalist Hassan Ruvakuki and 13 others to life in prison on terrorism charges for a November attack launched from across the Tanzanian border, a ruling criticized by media watchdogs.
(AFP, 6/20/12)
2012 Jun 27, Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza pardoned "several thousand" prisoners in order to address prison overcrowding and celebrate the 50th anniversary of independence on July 1. Eloge Niyonzima, a journalist for a private radio station in Bubanza, was beaten up overnight by members of the ruling party's youth wing militia.
(AFP, 6/27/12)
2012 Jul 24, Burundi's anti-corruption court sentenced Faustin Ndikumana, an anti-graft activist, to five years in jail for "false declarations." Ndikumana was arrested February 7 after writing a letter in which he said candidates for the post of judge in Burundi had to pay a bribe, and that the justice minister was in part responsible for this state of affairs.
(AFP, 7/24/12)
2012 Jul 26, The UN's food agency said 10 Central African countries have agreed to take part in a regional initiative to monitor the Congo Basin, one of the world's largest primary rainforests. They included Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda and Sao Tome and Principe.
(AFP, 7/26/12)
2013 Sep 12, A UN official said at least 25,000 Burundian refugees living in Tanzania have been forcibly repatriated over the past month, describing a "dramatic" humanitarian situation.
(AFP, 9/12/13)
2013 Sep 13, Burundi opened an investigation into claims that a former ethnic Hutu rebel leader ordered the massacre of Congolese refugees in an attack almost a decade ago. The Banyamulenge, an ethnic Tutsi tribe from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, in August accused Agathon Rwasa of ordering the killing of 166 Banyamulenge seeking refuge inside a camp in Burundi in 2004.
(Reuters, 9/13/13)
2013 Nov 10, Burundi officials said police have discovered dozens of human skulls during a search of the home of an Italian expatriate. Giuseppe Favaro, has been in custody since late October after he was caught trying to export two skulls to Thailand.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 30, Five east African countries signed a protocol to establish a monetary union, in a first step towards creating a single currency. At a summit in Kampala, leaders from Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda inked the framework to set up a single market modelled after the eurozone.
(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Dec 9, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the US military to transport troops from Burundi into the Central African Republic to help quell the latest upsurge in violence there.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2014 Jan 28, Burundi's top lawyer, Isidore Rufyikiri, was sacked after criticizing the government and being accused of urging the people to rebel.
(AFP, 1/29/14)
2014 Feb 10, In Burundi at least 60 people perished in flooding and landslides following a night of torrential rain in Bujumbura that swept away hundreds of homes and cut off roads and power.
(AFP, 2/10/14)
2014 Feb 11, The Burundi Red Cross said torrential rains and landslides have left at least 77 people dead and about 12,000 displaced.
(Reuters, 2/11/14)
2014 Mar 8, In Burundi violent clashes in Bujumbura pitted opposition Movement for Solidarity and Development activists against police. 21 MSD activists were arrested.
(AFP, 3/16/14)(Econ, 3/29/14, p.50)
2014 Mar 10, A Burundian official said South Africa has expelled a diplomat from Burundi's embassy in connection with a raid on an exiled Rwandan general's Johannesburg home and Burundi is considering a response.
(Reuters, 3/10/14)
2014 Mar 12, Burundi charged opposition leader Alexis Sinduhije, who is on the run from police, and 71 party supporters with rebellion following March 8 clashes.
(AFP, 3/16/14)
2014 Mar 21, Burundi sentenced 21 activists from a key opposition party to life in jail for "armed revolt" after a jogging protest earlier this month turned into violent clashes with police.
(AFP, 3/21/14)
2014 Apr 17, Burundi’s ruling CNDD-FDD party voted to create a reconciliation commission. Opposition parties boycotted the vote saying it will shield the ruling party from accountability for past crimes..
(Reuters, 4/18/14)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Burundi
End of file.
Return to home
Mennonite Central Committee: http://www.mcc.org/regions/burundi.html
Map: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/africa/Burundi_sm97.gif
Bujumburu: http://cityguide.lycos.com/assist/cityguide/articles/223_t.html
Travel: http://www.excite.com/travel/countries/burundi/
Factbook: http://198.76.84.1/HORN/burundi/misc/burfact.html
UPenn: http://www.fellesraadet.africainfo.no/africaindex/africaindex1/countries/burundi.html
A former Belgian colony with 85% Hutu, 14% Tutsi people and 1% Twa.
(SFC, 4/12/96, p.A-12)(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1901 Feb 23, Britain and Germany agreed on a boundary between German East Africa [later Tanganyika, Rwanda and Burundi] and Nyasaland [later Malawi].
(HN, 2/23/98)(WUD, 1994, p.593,990)
1923 The kingdoms of Ruanda and Urundi, a part of German East Africa, were conquered by British and Belgian troops during WWI, and became a Belgian mandate in 1923.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A12)(HNQ, 11/4/99)
1962 Jul 1, Burundi gained independence from Belgium. The UN trust territory of Ruanda-Urundi in east-central Africa was divided into the independent nations of Rwanda and Burundi.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A12)(http://africanscoutjamboree.org/en/history-of-burundi)
1972 The Tutsi-led government in Burundi killed some 100,000 Hutus.
(SFC, 8/31/99, p.A14)(SSFC, 4/7/02, p.A19)
1987-1993 Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi paratrooper, became the military president of Burundi.
(SFC, 8/26/96, p.A4)
1993 Jun, Melchior Ndadaye was elected president in the first democratic election in Burundi.
(SFC, 5/15/99, p.A14)
1993 Oct 21, Burundi’s first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated by Tutsi soldiers. 5 soldiers were sentenced to death for the murder in 1999. The military coup caused 525,000 Hutu's to flee. Civil war followed and over the next dozen years some 300,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed.
(SFC,8/22/96, p.E5)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A12)(SFC, 5/15/99, p.A14)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burundi_presidential_election,_1993)(Econ, 4/16/11, p.65)
1993 Pierre Buyoya paved the way for Burundi elections and handed the presidency to Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, elected by the Hutu majority.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1994 Apr 6, The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed on a return trip from Tanzania in a mysterious plane crash near Kigali, Rwanda; widespread violence erupted in Rwanda over claims the plane had been shot down: Agatha Uwilingiyimana, Rwanda’s and Africa’s 1st female PM, Cyprian Niayamira (Ntaryamira), president of Burundi (1993-94) and Juvenal Habyarimana, president of Rwanda (1973) were killed along with the French aircrew. In Rwanda the Interhamwe, an extremist organization, and the Rwandan armed forces, FAR, launched a massacre of Tutsis and sympathizers that killed some 800,000. [see Aug 1, 1997] A French report in 2004 concluded that Paul Kagame, Tutsi rebel leader, was behind the crash. In 2010 a Rwandan government-commissioned inquiry said Rwandan Hutu soldiers shot down the Hutu president's plane and sparked the slaughter of more than 500,000 people. In 2012 a French judge determined that the missile fire that brought down the plane and sparked the Rwanda genocide came from a military camp, and not Tutsi rebels. This finding supported the theory that Habyarimana was killed by extremist members of his own ethnic Hutu camp.
(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)(SFC, 2/21/97, p.A26)(AP, 4/6/99)(SFC, 2/11/04, p.A8)(AP, 1/12/10)(AFP, 1/11/12)
1994 Pres. Sylvestre Ntibantunganya took office in Burundi.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1994 Seven Rwandan refugee camps were created in Burundi and held some 250,000 people.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1995 Feb, Prime Minister Antoine Nduwayo took office in Burundi.
(SFC, 5/23/96, p.A17)
1996 Jan, The Burundi president warned that the country may be on the brink of a possible collapse due to fighting between the ethnic fanatics in the Hutu majority and the Tutsi-dominated army.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan, Tutsi militants closed down the Burundi capital in a general strike. They accused the president of backing massacres by Hutus after the killing of a predecessor in 1993.
(WSJ, 1/17/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr, The Red Cross said more than 55,000 people have been driven from their homes by ethnic fighting that intensified last month. More than 100,000 have been killed since 1993 in the conflict between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis. The fighting occurred in the capital city of Bujumbura. 235 civilians died when the Burundi army attacked villages at Buhoro.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/5/96, p.T-8)(SFC, 5/13/96, p.C-12)
1996 May 3, A handwritten account reached the Burundi capital that described the massacre of 375 people at the Kivyuka village market by government soldiers angry over recent rebel attacks on local power line towers. An army spokesman denied the charges.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.A-8)
1996 May 16, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, the Burundi’s Hutu president, has called his army “paralyzed and useless" and given it a week to stop ethnic violence between Tutsi armed forces and Hutu rebels.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-10)
1996 May 30, Suspected Hutu rebels of the Council for the Defense of Democracy killed at least 61 and wounded 25 Tutsis in eastern Burundi.
(SFC, 5/31/96, A16)
1996 Jun 4, In Burundi 3 Swiss Red Cross workers were ambushed and killed while delivering supplies near the village of Mugina. The Tutsi-dominated Uprona Party denied any role and said the killings were the work of gangs of the Coalition for the Defense of Democracy, the main Hutu rebel group.
(SFC, 6/5/96, p.C16)(SFC, 6/6/96, p.C3)
1996 Jun 13, A Burundi army report claimed that 50 Hutu rebels were killed in an attack on a training camp.
(SFC, 6/14/96, p. A16)
1996 Jul 4, Unidentified gunmen killed 80 people in an attack on a tea factory 15 miles northeast of Bujumbura, Burundi.
(WSJ, 7/5/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 21, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed 320 Tutsis, mostly women and children, at a refugee camp 45 miles north of the capital.
(WSJ, 7/22/96, p.A1)
1996 Jul 25, In Burundi the military seized power and named former president Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, as president. Hutu officials sought refuge in foreign embassies. Burundian Hutus fled to Zaire's South Kivu province, base of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy, an extremist Burundi Hutu movement backed by Zaire.
(WSJ, 7/26/96, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/15/96, p.A16)
1996 Jul 26, UN sources said that 268 Hutu civilians were killed in Burundi’s Gitega province. The Tutsi army said Hutu rebels attacked a coffee factory in Giheta.
(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Jul 27, In Burundi a Tutsi-led army killed at least 30 Hutu rebels in retaliation for an attack on a coffee plantation. Independent sources said that Hutus set fire to the factory and rice plantation in Giheta to justify a retaliatory attack on villages where Hutu rebels were thought to have taken refugees. Villagers said Tutsi soldiers massacred about 1,000 Hutus as they roamed from village to village in Gitega province.
(WSJ, 7/30/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/8/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug 13, The last 2 commercial flights left Burundi as the outside world tightened sanctions to punish the new military regime.
(SFC, 8/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug 20, In Burundi Pierre Buyoya sacked his army chief, Jean Bikomagu, who was implicated in the 1993 assassination of the first Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye. He also fired 2 more powerful military officers.
(WSJ, 8/21/96, p.A1)(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A9)(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E5)
1996 Aug 27, The last Rwandan refugee camp in Burundi closed.
(SFC, 8/28/96, p.A10)
1996 Aug, After the Burundi coup of Jul 25, former Tanzanian Pres. Julius Nyerere led East African leaders to impose sanctions on Burundi and force Buyoya to restore democratic rule.
(SFC, 9/25/96, p.A9)
1996 Sep 3, Hutu guerrillas attacked an army garrison and local government headquarters in northern Burundi.
(SFC, 4/9/96, A10)
1996 Oct 21, In Murambi village, Burundi, some 300 (258-435) Hutu refugees returned from Zaire and were killed as they sought refuge in a village church.
(SFC, 11/23/96, p.A8)(SFC, 12/12/96, p.C2)
1997 Jan 5, In Burundi the Tutsi-led army attacked and killed hundreds of Hutus in a dispute over land at Bukeye in central Burundi.
(SFC, 1/25/97, p.A10)
1997 Jan 11, Soldiers shot and killed 126 Burundian Hutu refugees trying to break out of a holding camp in the northeast. Seven soldiers were arrested for the slayings.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.A12)
1997 Feb 21, It was reported that Burundi troops killed more than 150 civilians in reprisals for rebel attacks. 100 people were killed at Mugara and fifty near Maramvya.
(SFC, 2/22/96, p.A12)
1997 Apr 16, African leaders of 7 nations eased their embargo on Burundi to alleviate local suffering.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A12)
1997 May 13, An outbreak of Typhus was reported in Burundi. Some 20,000 cases in 3 northwest provinces were reported by March, mostly in Hutu regroupment camps set up by the Tutsi-led military.
(WSJ, 5/13/97, p.A1)
1997 May 29, It was reported that the Tutsi-led army killed more than 40 Hutu rebels that included Hutu students kicked out of Bujumburu Univ. in 1995.
(SFC, 5/29/97, p.A10)
1997 Aug 1, A UN report from this day was made public in 2000 and cited Tutsi informants claiming that they helped to shoot down the airplane carrying Rwandan Pres. Juvanal Habyarimana on Apr 6, 1994.
(SFC, 3/2/00, p.A14)
1997 Oct 20, Soldiers of the Tutsi army packed 40 civilians into a rural school in the region of Kibezi and tossed a grenade inside. All were killed. Major Andre Nijongabo, a Burundi army commander, defended the incident claiming that the dead were “genocidal terrorists." Hutu rebels had burned 18 schools a week ago.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A11)
1997 Marie-Louise Sibazuri launched her Burundi radio drama "Our Neighbors Are Our Family." In 1998 she moved to Belgium and directed the program from there.
(WSJ, 3/16/00, p.A1)
1998 Jan 1, Some 1-2 thousand Hutu rebels attacked a Burundi military base and near the main airport and 150 civilians, 30 rebels and 2 soldiers were reported killed. Later reports said as many as 300 were killed and that the army had sealed up the area.
(WSJ, 1/2/98, p.A1)(SFC, 1/2/98, p.A14)(SFC, 1/3/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 12, In Burundi Hutu rebels attacked army positions and at least 55 people were killed.
(WSJ, 1/13/98, p.A1)
1988 Jan 21, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed 45 people in 2 attacks, and 20 rebels died in a subsequent battle with the army.
(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.A1)
1998 Jan 28, Burundi Colonel Firmin Sinzoyiheba, the Tutsi minister of defense, was killed in a helicopter crash in the Gihinga Hills.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Burundi military leader Pierre Buyoya was sworn in as president by the democratically elected parliament.
(SFC, 6/12/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 28, In Burundi 34 people were killed south of the capital.
(SFC, 10/29/98, p.A14)
1999 Jan 19, Rebels based in Tanzania killed 59 civilians in Makamba, Burundi. In Muresi Hill 76 civilians were killed.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E9)
1999 Jan 28, In Burundi officials reported that at least 178 civilians had been killed over the last 2 weeks in clashes between rebels and government troops.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E9)
1999 May 14, In Burundi 5 soldiers were sentenced to death for the 1993 murder of Pres. Melchior Ndadaye.
(SFC, 5/15/99, p.A14)
1999 Jul 16, In Burundi peace talks ended in a deadlock.
(SFC, 7/17/99, p.A14)
1999 Jul, Burundi government troops began herding Hutu farmers around Bujumburu into 58 makeshift camps to deprive rebels of support. Cholera, dysentery and malnutrition soon became rife in the camps.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.A9)
1999 Aug 29, In Burundi Hutu militiamen attacked 2 neighborhoods outside Bujumbura and killed at least 26 civilians.
(SFC, 8/30/99, p.A14)
1999 Aug 31, It was reported that Bryan Rich of America and Alexis Sinduhije of Burundi, founders of the country's first independent news outlet, were making a documentary called "Breaking the Code," featuring interviews with Hutu and Tutsi participants in the 1993 slaughter.
(SFC, 8/31/99, p.A12)
1999 Sep 24, In Burundi the government reported that Hutu rebels had hacked to death 11 civilians in 2 separate attacks.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A14)
1999 Sep 26, In Nyambuye, Burundi, 30 people were killed in a Catholic church. Unidentified men in uniform opened fire while mostly Hutu worshipers prayed.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C14)
1999 Sep 28, It was reported that the Burundi army has recently forced over 200,000 villagers into makeshift camps without food or water and that 100 people had died over the past week.
(SFC, 9/29/99, p.C14)
1999 Oct 12, In Burundi Hutu rebels attacked a UN humanitarian convoy and killed 9 people at the Muzye refugee camp in Rutana.
(SFC, 10/13/99, p.A10)
1999 Nov 22, In Tanzania it was reported that some 500 people per day were fleeing into the country from Burundi as fighting in Burundi intensified.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 1, African leaders chose Nelson Mandela as the new mediator for talks on ending the 6-year civil war in Burundi.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D2)
1999 Dec 20, In Burundi Gabriel Gisabwamana, a Hutu member of parliament, was shot and killed by soldiers at a checkpoint after the 10 p.m. curfew.
(SFC, 12/22/99, p.C11)
1999 Dec 31, Burundian soldiers killed at least 43 people including children in the Kabezi commune in Bujumbura Rural province.
(SFC, 1/800, p.A10)
2000 Jan 16, Nelson Mandela addressed peace talks in Arusha, Tanzania, and admonished the leaders of Burundi for having failed their people and all of Africa.
(SFC, 1/20/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 21, In Tanzania African presidents and European ministers appealed to Burundi's leaders to negotiate a swift end to the civil war.
(SFC, 2/22/00, p.A9)
2000 Mar 3, In Burundi the authorities under int'l. pressure began dismantling 6 of nearly 60 camps holding hundreds of thousands of Hutu civilians.
(SFC, 3/4/00, p.C1)
2000 Apr 25, In Burundi 66 people were reported killed in renewed fighting between Hutu rebels and government troops.
(SFC, 4/26/00, p.A16)
2000 Jun 7, Burundi Pres. Pierre Buyoya made concessions to end the 7-year war. He agreed to integrate the Tutsi-led army and to close down the regroupment camps by July 31.
(SFC, 6/8/00, p.C3)
2000 Jul 22, In Burundi uniformed men killed 53 men, women and children in the village of Butaganzwa, when they refused to go to a government regroupment camp.
(SFC, 8/1/00, p.A10)
2000 Aug 6, In Burundi Hutu rebels ambushed a truck carrying military cadets and 28 soldiers and 6 civilians were killed near Nyabiraba village.
(SFC, 8/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 28, Pres. Clinton stopped in Burundi where Tutsi minority parties refused to sign a deal with the Hutu majority. Clinton urged the parties to work for peace.
(SFC, 8/29/00, p.A6)
2000 Dec 28, Hutu rebels ambushed a commuter bus outside Bujumbura and killed 20 passengers.
(SFC, 12/30/00, p.A10)
2001 Apr 9, In Burundi villagers were caught in crossfire fighting between the army and Hutu rebels. 11-30 people were killed and thousands were forced to flee their homes.
(SFC, 4/12/01, p.C2)
2001 Apr 18, The Burundi army put down a coup attempt by junior officers opposed to Pres. Buyoya’s negotiations with Hutu rebels.
(SFC, 4/19/01, p.A11)
2001 Jun 3, It was reported the Burundi was poised for war due to conflicts between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority.
(SSFC, 6/3/01, p.A16)
2001 Jul 23, In Burundi Pres. Buyoya survived a coup attempt by Tutsi soldiers and sealed a power-sharing accord with Hutu politicians. The Arusha accord called for Buyoya to lead for 18 months followed by a Hutu president for another 18 months with elections to follow.
(WSJ, 7/24/01, p.A1)(SFC, 7/24/01, p.A6)
2001 Sep 28, It was reported that clashed in Burundi between government forces and Hutu rebels had killed at least 19 civilians and 22 soldiers over the last week.
(SFC, 9/28/01, p.D6)
2001 Oct, Some 150 political exiles returned to participate in the 3-year transition to democracy. Some 700 South African soldiers massed in Bujumburu to help protect the exiles.
(SFC, 11/1/01, p.C7)
2001 Nov 6, In Munini, Burundi, 24 civilians were reported dead from fighting between Hutu rebels and the Tutsi dominated army.
(SFC, 11/7/01, p.A16)
2001 Nov 9, Hutu rebels in Burundi abducted 80 teenage boys and 4 teachers from 3 schools in Ruyigi. Forced recruitment was believed to be the reason. Hundreds of youths escaped and at least 3 were left dead.
(WSJ, 11/8/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/12/01, p.A1)
2001 Dec 7, Int’l. donors promised Burundi over $760 million for reconstruction and to fight AIDS. About 11.3% of the population was infected with HIV.
(SFC, 12/8/01, p.A7)
2001 Dec 25, Burundi Maj. Gen. Gahiro reported that 515 Hutu rebels and 28 soldiers had been killed in the Tenga region since Nov 26. He said fighting the area was liberated but that fighting continued.
(SFC, 12/26/01, p.A8)
2002 Jan 15, Fighting began in Burundi between the army and Hutu rebels. At least 60 people were dead after a week.
(SFC, 1/26/02, p.A8)
2002 Mar 19, In Burundi fighting between the Tutsi dominated army and Hutu rebels forced over 16,000 people from their homes over the last 2 days.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A10)
2002 Jun 4, National Liberation Forces rebels, one of 2 rebel Hutu groups, attacked military positions near Bujumburu and caused thousands of people to flee the area.
(SFC, 6/5/02, p.A13)
2002 Jun 11, More than 40 Burundian refugees returning home from Tanzania after years in exile died when the truck carrying them overturned, an official said.
(AP, 6/12/02)
2002 Jun 21, In Burundi a court has sentenced 11 people to death and 16 others to life imprisonment for taking part in massacres that followed the 1993 assassination of Burundi's first democratically elected leader.
(AP, 6/21/02)
2002 Jun 27, Burundian rebels said they had repelled a major government offensive against bases in the Kibera National Park, saying 35 government soldiers had been killed in five day of fighting.
(AP, 6/27/02)
2002 Jul 26, The Burundian army claimed it has killed at least 500 Hutu rebels during fighting over the last two weeks, while suffering only 15 losses.
(AP, 7/26/02)
2002 Aug 30, In Burundi the army reportedly killed 48 Hutu rebels in clashes outside Bujumbura.
(SFC, 9/5/02, p.A11)
2002 Sep 9, In Burundi 183 civilians were killed by uniformed men in an area of heavy fighting between government troops and rebels. On Sep 18 the government promised an investigation.
(AP, 9/18/02)
2002 Oct 7, In Burundi 2 smaller factions of the main rebel movements signed a cease-fire aimed at ending the 9-year civil war.
(AP, 10/8/02)
2002 Nov 2, In Burundi at least 15,000 people have fled their homes as fighting between the army and rebels escalated despite peace talks.
(AP, 11/2/02)
2002 Nov 22, Burundi's largest rebel faction launched a mortar attack on Bujumbura from the surrounding hills, causing thousands of residents to flee their homes in the northern part of the city.
(AP, 11/22/02)
2002 Dec 3, In Burundi Pres. Pierre Buyoya and Pierre Nkurunziza, leader of the main faction of the Forces for the Defense of Democracy, or FDD, agreed to a cease-fire in their 9-year civil war (effective Dec 30), in theory leaving only one rebel group fighting in a conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people.
(AP, 12/3/02)
2003 Jan 15, In Burundi 2 weeks of fighting between the Tutsi-dominated army and two rebel groups has displaced more than 30,000 people in two provinces.
(AP, 1/15/03)
2003 Mar 22, Burundi's hardline Hutu rebel group expressed satisfaction with its first round of peace talks in Switzerland.
(AP, 3/22/03)
2003 Mar 26, The Burundian army attacked a rebel stronghold in a Kibira forest with mortars and artillery, killing 68 insurgents. Rebels said only 2 fighters were killed.
(AP, 3/27/03)
2003 Apr 2, Burundi said Ethiopia, Mozambique and South Africa will send 3,500 peacekeepers to enforce a truce ending nearly 10 years of civil war.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 8, In Burundi battles started between the Tutsi-dominated army and the rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy, or FDD, after the army tried to intercept insurgents moving into Gitega province. More than 6,000 people fled their homes in response.
(AP, 4/12/03)
2003 Apr 19, In Burundi a mortar shell apparently fired from rebel positions in the hills northwest of Bujumbura crashed into a house, killing three children and wounding a woman and another child. The latest fighting has forced 50,000 people to flee their homes.
(AP, 4/19/03)
2003 Apr 30, Burundi's Tutsi minority handed over the presidency to Domitien Ndayizeye of the Hutu majority as part of the peace process aimed at ending 9 1/2 years of civil war.
(AP, 4/30/03)
2003 May 11, The Burundi army killed 23 Hutu rebels during fighting in central Burundi, but the insurgents claimed the dead were civilians.
(AP, 5/13/03)
2003 Jul 8, In Burundi Hutu rebels fought their way into part of the capital, trading gun, mortar and grenade fire with the Tutsi-dominated army. Thousands fled their homes.
(AP, 7/8/03)
2003 Jul 10, In Burundi recent fighting left an estimated 170 people killed according to a UN estimate. 6,000 to 7,000 others had been forced to flee their homes.
(AP, 7/12/03)
2003 Sep 21, The latest outbreak of fighting between Hutu rebels and the army in Burundi's decade-long civil war has killed at least 12 people on the outskirts of Bujumbura.
(AP, 9/23/03)
2003 Oct 27, In Burundi fighting between government soldiers and Hutu rebels has forced more than 5,000 people to flee their homes in the hills surrounding the capital of Bujumbura.
(AP, 10/28/03)
2003 Nov 2, Burundi's president and main rebel leader signed a peace agreement, but efforts to end the decade-long civil war were threatened by renewed fighting between Tutsi-dominated government troops and other Hutu rebels.
(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Nov 3, It was reported from Burundi that a decade of civil war as well as fighting in neighboring Congo had decimated the once 300-strong herd of hippos whose habitat is the marshy Ruzizi River that flows from the northern end of Lake Tanganyika. In August, the World Wildlife Fund warned that 185 miles to the north, only 1,300 hippos of the 29,000 recorded 30 years ago remained in and around Lake Edward.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 10, In Burundi Hutu rebels bombarded the capital with rockets, killing 5 people, destroying part of the Chinese Embassy and striking the home of a U.S. military attache.
(AP, 11/10/03)
2003 Nov 16, Burundi's government signed a comprehensive power-sharing plan with the Hutu FDD, country's largest rebel group, a major step toward ending a 10-year war that has killed at least 200,000 people.
(AP, 11/16/03)(Econ, 8/14/04, p.44)
2003 Nov 19, Rebel holdouts in Burundi clashed with government troops in a capital slum, killing 11 people, mainly noncombatants caught in the crossfire.
(AP, 11/20/03)
2003 Dec 22, An international human rights group criticized a peace agreement giving soldiers and rebels temporary immunity from prosecution for atrocities committed against civilians in Burundi's 10-year civil war.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 29, In Burundi gunmen killed Monsignor Michael Courtney, the pope's ambassador, firing on his car as he was returning from a funeral.
(AP, 12/29/03)
2003 Dec, In Burundi the Forces for the Defense of Democracy (FDD), the biggest Hutu rebel group, joined Burundi's transitional government. FNL rebels under Agathon Rwasa (39) continued to lob mortar shells into Bujumbura.
(Econ, 12/6/03, p.41)
2004 Jan 12, In Burundi Hutu rebels killed 17 people, including five soldiers, in attacks northwest of Bujumbura over the last 2 days.
(AP, 1/13/04)
2004 Feb 24, An earthquake shook Burundi, killing three people and destroying at least two dozen homes.
(AP, 2/24/04)
2004 Aug 13, The FNL, a Burundian Hutu rebel faction, raided Gatumba camp, a UN refugee camp in western Burundi, shooting and hacking to death 160 people. The camp sheltered Congolese ethnic Tutsi refugees, known as the Banyamulenge.
(AP, 8/14/04)(Econ, 8/21/04, p.37)(Econ, 9/11/04, p.44)
2004 Nov 18, The UN Security Council opened an extraordinary two-day session in Nairobi, the first outside its New York headquarters in 14 years. Sudan topped the agenda. Great Lakes regional foreign ministers approved a pact for greater cross-border cooperation and confidence-building. It was due to be adopted at a summit in Dar es Salaam.
(AP, 11/18/04)(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Nov 19, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged leaders of Africa's blood-soaked Great Lakes region to implement a peace plan that could herald a "new era" for millions of Africans.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Burundi created a national army out of former army and seven former rebel movements.
(AFP, 10/22/11)
2005 Feb 28, Burundians voted on a new constitution that enshrines Hutu control by allotting them 60% of parliamentary seats with 40% for Tutsis.
(WSJ, 3/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jun 13, Burundi began forced repatriation of thousands of Rwandan refugees, who feared reprisals at home. The UN condemned the action.
(WSJ, 6/14/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 4, Burundi's main Hutu ex-rebel group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), won a comfortable victory in legislative elections, taking 58.23% of the vote.
(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Aug 19, Pierre Nkurunziza (40), a former Hutu rebel leader, was chosen by lawmakers as Burundi's president, culminating an internationally mediated effort that hopes to bring peace to a central African nation wrecked by a dozen years of ethnic war. Burundi’s 12-year civil war left as many as 300,000 people dead.
(AP, 8/20/05)(Econ, 3/29/14, p.50)
2005 Sep 19, Classrooms and chairs were scarce at crowded Burundian primary schools as 500,000 children, nearly double last year's enrollment, showed up for the first day of classes following the elimination of fees.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Dec 31, A first group of UN peacekeepers from Mozambique left Burundi as part of a phased withdrawal of troops that will end in December next year.
(AFP, 12/31/05)
2006 Jan 1, East African leaders said that millions of people in the region faced hunger because poor rains had affected vital crops and pasture. Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania faced acute food shortages.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2006 Jan 5, The UN said around 2,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees have arrived in Burundi in the past month, many saying they feel insecure in Rwanda or are being refused permission to cultivate their land.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Feb 27, In Burundi a government official acknowledged that rogue soldiers and police officers have executed and tortured suspected rebels and civilians.
(AP, 2/27/06)
2006 May 29, Burundi's only hold-out rebel group began talks with the government in an effort to end the central African country's 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 Jun 17, Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza left to sign a cease-fire agreement with the country's last rebel group in neighboring Tanzania as his government works toward ending a 12-year conflict.
(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 18, Burundi's government and the country's last rebel group agreed, while meeting in Tanzania, to end hostilities and sign a comprehensive cease-fire deal in two weeks.
(AP, 6/19/06)
2006 Jun 30, The UN Security Council voted unanimously to conclude its peacekeeping mission in Burundi on Dec. 31 and replace it with a UN office to help promote development and democracy in the central African nation.
(AP, 6/30/06)
2006 Aug 6, In Burundi gunmen hurled a grenade at a bar frequented by army officers, killing four people. Authorities said the attack was an attempt to undermine the government.
(AP, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 21, Burundi police arrested former President Domitien Ndayizeye, apparently in connection with an alleged plot to overthrow the tiny central African country's government.
(Reuters, 8/21/06)
2006 Sep 5, Burundi Vice-President Alice Nzomukunda resigned over corruption and human rights abuses that she says are hampering her nation's progress.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5316690.stm)
2006 Sep 7, Burundi's government and the country's last rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL) signed a permanent cease-fire as the central African nation emerges from 12 years of civil war.
(AP, 9/7/06)(Econ, 9/16/06, p.57)
2006 Oct 17, The United States said it plans to take in about 10,000 Burundian refugees from Tanzania, many of whom fled their landlocked nation as far back as 1972.
(Reuters, 10/18/06)
2006 Oct 25, A rights group said Burundi's spy agency has executed 38 people and arbitrarily detained 200 others since the Central African nation's new government came to power. New York-based Human Rights Watch accused President Pierre Nkurunziza’s year-old government of failing to prosecute those accused of extra-judicial killings.
(AP, 10/25/06)
2006 Nov 30, The East African Community (EAC) said Rwanda and Burundi have been accepted as members, expanding the regional economic bloc to five nations. The EAC previously grouped Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, which hoped to transform the region into a political federation.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Dec 15, In Kenya 11 African heads of state attending the 2nd International Conference on the Great Lakes Region signed a landmark $2 billion (1.5-billion-euro) security and development pact to forestall fresh violence in the area.
(AFP, 12/15/06)
2007 Jan 20, The UN’s food agency said some 800,000 Burundians face a serious food crisis after devastating floods ravaged several regions of the tiny central African nation.
(AP, 1/20/07)
2007 Feb 26, The World Vision humanitarian group said that more than 50% of children in refugee camps around Africa's volatile Great Lakes area have experienced some form of sexual abuse. The data, collected in camps in the Burundi, Congo (DRC), Tanzania, northern Uganda and Rwanda, said widespread poverty made children vulnerable to abuses.
(AFP, 2/27/07)
2007 Feb 28, Burundi said that it will send 1,700 peacekeepers to Somalia as part of an 8,000-strong African Union force, while the first Ugandan contingent prepared to leave for the war-torn nation.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 15, Human Rights Watch released a report that said Children in Burundi suffer serious abuses in prison, including torture, rape and food shortages, in a criminal justice system that treats them as adults.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 18, The UN said a first group of Congolese refugees, who escaped a 2004 massacre at a camp in Burundi, left for the US to start a program to resettle more than 500 people.
(AFP, 3/18/07)
2007 Apr 18, Burundi, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda adopted a joint military strategy to fight rebel groups operating in the war-scarred Great Lakes region.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 May 18, A group of 88 Burundians who have lived as refugees in neighboring Tanzania for up to 35 years became the first of some 8,500 to head to the US for a new life.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 23, The UN human rights commissioner said that Burundi has agreed to set up a tribunal to try people suspected of genocide and war crimes during its 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/23/07)
2007 May 25, In Burundi 61 countries and international organizations promised 656 million dollars (488 million euros) during a donors' roundtable in the capital Bujumbura. The World Bank considers Burundi, where 70% of the population lives below the poverty line, the world's third-poorest nation.
(AFP, 5/25/07)
2007 Jun 19, President Jakaya Kikwete said Tanzania will shut camps housing 150,000 refugees from Burundi by the end of this year as the war in the neighbouring central African country is over.
(AFP, 6/19/07)
2007 Jul 21, Jean Berchmans Ndayshimiye, the military leader of Burundi's last rebel group (FNL), escaped back to the bush, sparking fears of renewed civil conflict.
(AFP, 7/22/07)
2007 Jul, Rwanda and Burundi became members of the East African Community (EAC), which included Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
(AP, 11/17/07)(Econ, 9/5/09, p.52)
2007 Aug 19, Simultaneous grenade attacks were launched on the homes of five Burundian politicians who recently criticized the president, injuring three but failing to harm the targets.
(AFP, 8/19/07)
2007 Aug 28, Africa's Great Lakes nations (Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda) vowed to eliminate rebel groups roaming their territory and spurring insecurity in the continent's most volatile region.
(AFP, 8/28/07)
2007 Sep 11, Six Congolese soldiers were detained by the Burundian navy for repeatedly attacking fishing boats on Lake Tanganyika and stealing their catch.
(AFP, 9/12/07)
2007 Oct 16, Burundi's last active rebel group said it will shun a weekend meeting to put the central African nation's derailed peace process back on track as the South African mediator was biased.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Oct 20, Burundi's last active rebel group was urged to implement a 2006 ceasefire as it boycotted a meeting aimed to put the central African nation's derailed peace process back on track.
(AFP, 10/20/07)
2007 Nov 14, Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza announced a new unity cabinet drawing members from two leading opposition groups in a bid to end months of political deadlock in the troubled African nation.
(AFP, 11/15/07)
2007 Nov 14, The EU reached an accord with the East African Community (EAC) states of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. They will enjoy duty free, quota free access to the EU for all products, except sugar and rice, from January 1. Originally established in 1967, the EAC collapsed a decade later amid diverging economic philosophies. It was resurrected in 2000 as Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda agreed to create an EU-style common market for their 90 million citizens. Rwanda and Burundi became members in July this year.
(AP, 11/17/07)(Econ, 9/5/09, p.52)
2007 Dec 23, In Somalia a first contingent of 100 Burundian peacekeepers deployed in the capital, joining 1,800 Ugandan troops in an African Union force, AMISOM, that is still well short of the personnel strength needed to help restore order. Insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked an Ethiopian army base in northern Mogadishu, triggering a deadly nighttime clash that sent stray mortar rounds crashing into homes. At least five Somalis were killed and eight wounded in the crossfire.
(AP, 12/23/07)(AFP, 10/22/11)
2007 Dec 24, In southwestern Somalia gunmen threw grenades at the home of the regional police chief, killing two of his grandchildren and a bodyguard but not their target. Burundi deployed a 2nd contingent of 92 peacekeepers to Mogadishu, to bolster an African Union force.
(AP, 12/24/07)(AP, 12/25/07)
2008 Jan 20, The final 210 members of the first battalion of Burundian soldiers to be deployed in Somalia as part of an African Union peace-keeping force left Bujumbura for Mogadishu. Burundi is expected to deploy a total of 1,700 soldiers in Somalia, alongside around 1,600 troops from Uganda who have been in the capital Mogadishu since March.
(AFP, 1/20/08)
2008 Mar 14, Five Burundi insurgents and a government soldier were killed in a clash with the army in the north of the war-wracked central African country's capital.
(AFP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 18, The World Food Program (WFP) made a six million dollar appeal to feed some 90,000 Burundian refugees in Tanzania who expect to return to the central African country in 2008.
(AP, 3/18/08)
2008 Apr 17, In Burundi suspected rebels attacked the capital, Bujumbura. A series of attacks killed at least 17 people.
(AP, 4/18/08)(WSJ, 4/19/08, p.A1)
2008 May 18, In Burundi as the government and rebels sought unsuccessfully to reach agreement in negotiations to reinstate a 2006 ceasefire deal, the army attacked National Liberation Forces (FNL) rebel positions south of Bujumbura.
(AFP, 5/20/08)
2008 May 25, Burundian officials said the army killed three rebels near the capital over the weekend, the latest in a series of violent clashes in the central African nation.
(AFP, 5/26/08)
2008 May 26, Burundi's government and last active rebel group signed an unconditional ceasefire agreement, raising hopes of a definitive end to the small central African nation's 15-year civil war.
(AP, 5/26/08)
2008 May 30, Agathon Rwasa, the exiled leader of Burundi's last rebel group, returned to the capital to begin implementing a stalled deal seen as the final obstacle to peace in the tiny central African country.
(Reuters, 5/30/08)
2008 Jun 8, Burundi's top rebel leader and the government's chief negotiator pledged to work to end 15 years of civil war as they arrived in South Africa for talks on the country's peace process.
(AP, 6/8/08)
2008 Jul 16, The United States signed a pair of agreements to boost trade and investment ties with countries in southern and eastern Africa. These included the Trade, Investment and Development Cooperation Agreement with the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU), which includes Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland; and the Trade Investment and Framework Agreement (TIFA) with the East African Community, which includes Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2008 Oct 14, Burundi said it has completed its deployment of another 850 soldiers to Somalia, bringing to about 3,400 the total number of African Union peacekeepers stationed there. Burundi had already deployed some 850 soldiers to Somalia as part of AMISOM (African mission in Somalia).
(AP, 10/14/08)
2008 Oct 16, Around one million Burundian children under the age of five suffer chronic malnutrition, the UN food agency announced as it marked World Food Day in the tiny central African nation.
(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Nov 17, In Somalia witnesses said African Union (AU) peacekeepers from Burundi have started moving into positions usually manned by Ethiopian troops in the capital Mogadishu, as part of the ongoing Djibouti peace process.
(AFP, 11/17/08)
2008 Nov 22, Burundi's parliament adopted a new set of laws abolishing the death penalty for the first time in the troubled central African country.
(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Dec 2, A Burundi soldier serving with African Union forces in Somalia was killed in fighting with Islamist insurgents in the war-torn capital Mogadishu.
(AFP, 12/3/08)
2008 Dec 4, In Burundi a summit was held in Bujumbura stating the position of the Great Lakes region on the implementation of the peace agreements signed at the Dar es Salaam summit of 2006 in Tanzania.
(http://allafrica.com/stories/200812040216.html)
2009 Jan 2, In Burundi an 8-year-old albino boy was hacked to death in front of his mother and made off with his arms and legs. The body parts of a single albino, to be used in witch doctor potions, fetched about $1000. This attack followed another on a 6-year-old girl.
(Econ, 1/17/09, p.50)
2009 Mar 13, In Burundi an albino man was murdered and dismembered overnight by suspected smugglers with links to Tanzanian witch doctors, the fourth such case in a month in the central African nation.
(AFP, 3/13/09)
2009 Jul 24, Burundi army officials said 3 of its soldiers serving with African Union peacekeepers in Somalia have died of a mysterious illness in a Kenyan hospital where more than 10 others are being treated.
(AFP, 7/24/09)
2009 Aug 1, Burundi said it has deployed a third battalion of 850 soldiers to Mogadishu to reinforce the African Union peacekeeping mission there. With the new troops, more than 5,000 soldiers from Burundi and Uganda are now taking part in the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which began in March 2007 and has cost the lives of 17 Burundian soldiers.
(AFP, 8/2/09)
2009 Oct 5, In Burundi 2 days of clashes began as government forces fired live rounds in the air to deter hundreds of Congolese refugees from returning home. Some 900 refugees had decided to return home on foot rather than be transferred to a new camp further away from the border with Democratic Republic of Congo.
(AFP, 10/7/09)
2009 Oct 23, Somali Islamist rebels threatened to attack the capitals of Burundi and Uganda, the two central African countries that have deployed peacekeeping troops to prop up Somali's transitional government.
(AFP, 10/23/09)
2009 Nov 20, In Tanzania members of the East Africa Community (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda) signed a common market agreement in Arusha, headquarters of the EAC.
(http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-11/21/content_12513712.htm)
2009 Nov 30, Interpol and the Kenya Wildlife Service said African authorities over the last 3 months had raided shops, intercepted vehicles at checkpoints and used sniffer dogs to detect and seize over 3,800 pounds (1,768kg) of illegal elephant ivory in a six-nation operation. This involved the wildlife authorities, police and customs departments of Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
(AP, 11/30/09)
2009 Dec 30, In Burundi the last South African soldiers from the African Union Special Task Force still operating in Burundi completed their mission and left the country for good to return to South Africa.
(AFP, 12/31/09)
2010 Mar 4, In Rwanda 2 grenade blasts wounded 16 people in the capital, in the second wave of grenade attacks to hit Kigali in two weeks. On March 6 authorities said Deo Mushayidi, a former member of the then rebel group Rwandan Patriotic Front that ended the 1994 genocide, was arrested in neighboring Burundi. The government has also accused two former senior army officers now exiled in South Africa of being behind the attacks.
(AP, 3/5/10)(AFP, 3/6/10)
2010 May 3, In Burundi attackers chopped off the limbs of a 5-year-old albino boy and pulled out his mother's eye, killing them over the belief that their body parts would bring wealth and success. Ten assailants armed with guns and grenades killed Desire Vyegura (5) and his mother, Susann Vyegura. Thoma Vyegura, who was not albino, was also killed while trying to protect his daughter and grandson.
(AP, 5/7/10)
2010 May 19, The Burundian government said in a statement that it had given Neela Ghoshal, a Human Rights Watch researcher, until June 5 to leave the country. Burundi is due to hold its first round of elections after nearly 16 years of civil war May 23. Presidential polls are scheduled for June 28.
(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 24, Burundians turned out in droves to vote in local polls marking the first phase of an electoral marathon, the first of a series of polls in which the tiny African nation will also vote for representatives to parliament and its next president.
(AFP, 5/24/10)
2010 Jun 1, In Burundi 5 presidential candidates in upcoming elections said they're withdrawing from the race because of rigged voting. The candidates announced their withdrawal following a May 24 vote that opposition parties said were rigged by the ruling party, which received 64 percent of votes. Four rounds of voting remain.
(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 Jun 4, Burundi's main Tutsi party followed five opposition parties in pulling out from the central African nation's June presidential poll, leaving serving leader Pierre Nkurunziza as the sole candidate.
(AFP, 6/5/10)
2010 Jun 21, In Burundi the president of the ruling party's youth league was assassinated by unknown gunmen.
(AFP, 6/22/10)
2010 Jun 22, In Burundi 2 people were reported killed and several wounded overnight in the latest spate of attacks to rock the East African nation amid a tense electoral crisis.
(AFP, 6/22/10)
2010 Jun 27, Burundi's police overnight arrested six senior officials from an opposition party, as the troubled central African nation prepared for a controversial presidential election.
(AFP, 6/27/10)
2010 Jun 28, Burundi began voting for a president. Incumbent Pres. Pierre Nkurunziza was the lone candidate.
(AP, 6/28/10)
2010 Jun 30, In Burundi politicians boycotting the elections dismissed the results as a sham.
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 2, It was reported that grenade attacks in Burundi have killed 8 people and wounded almost 50 over the last month.
(WSJ, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 22, Burundi was labeled as the most corrupt country in East Africa in a survey by Transparency International. Rwanda was found to be the least corrupt among the five countries in the region.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Aug 26, Interpol said police have seized about 10 metric tons of counterfeit medicines and arrested 80 people in a sweep across eastern Africa. Authorities across Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zanzibar took part in the bust.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Sep 24, Agathon Rwasa, a former rebel chief in Burundi, appealed by letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon to intervene and prevent the east African nation from falling again into violent conflict. Rwasa headed the ex-rebel National Liberation Forces, which became a political party in 2009 after a peace deal ended Burundi's 13-year civil war.
(AFP, 9/24/10)
2010 Nov 19, In the Republic of Congo 8 countries signed a convention to limit the spread of weapons in central Africa, but three countries opted out. Angola, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, The Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe all signed. Burundi, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda did not sign.
(AFP, 11/20/10)
2010 Some 100,000 Twa pygmies remained in the Great Lakes region of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and CongoDRC. Most of them were barred from their ancestral forests including the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, which was turned into a national park in 1991.
(Econ, 9/25/10, SR p.11)
2010 Burundi’s population stood at about 9 million. Tax revenues were around $9 million.
(Econ, 7/24/10, p.48)
2011 Mar 4, Two Nairobi-based diplomats said at least 43 Burundian and 10 Ugandan troops have been killed in Somalia since Feb. 18. A major offensive against Islamist militants began on Feb 19.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 14, Burundi said it has deployed an additional 1,000 soldiers for the African Union force protecting the Somali government.
(AFP, 3/14/11)
2011 Jul 1, Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza appealed for the first time to opposition leaders in exile to return home and begin a dialogue, in a speech to mark the country's independence.
(AFP, 7/2/11)
2011 Jul 4, In Burundi an armed gang raided two police posts in Bujumbura and dropped leaflets saying they were members of a rebel group called FRONABU-Tabara (Burundi National Front). Four suspects were arrested.
(AFP, 7/6/11)
2011 Jul 15, In Burundi lawyer Suzanne Bukuru was arrested and imprisoned for helping French journalists get an interview with victims she is representing in a rape trial involving a Frenchman Patrice Faye (58). On July 25 lawyers in Burundi announced a week-long strike in protest at the arrest of Bukuru for "complicity in espionage."
(AFP, 7/25/11)
2011 Jul 19, In Burundi at least nine people died in clashes between unidentified "armed gangsters" and security forces in northwest Cibitoke province. Two soldiers, a police officer and six "gangsters" were among the dead.
(AFP, 7/20/11)
2011 Jul 25, A court in Burundi found Frenchman Patrice Faye (58) guilty of raping five teenagers, giving him a 25-year jail sentence and a fine of 14,000 euros ($20,000). Faye was accused of raping five girls aged 13 to 17, students at a school he set up for poor children. He denied the charges and said a doctor had confirmed that three of his accusers were still virgins.
(AFP, 7/25/11)
2011 Aug 11, Burundi and South Africa signed several cooperation deals including in defense, education and agriculture during Pres. Zuma's visit to the central African country.
(AFP, 8/11/11)
2011 Sep 2, In Somalia Malaysian cameraman Noramfaizul Mohd Nor was killed in Mogadishu by 4 Burundi peacekeepers. The 4 were later discharged from the force and faced trial in Burundi.
(AP, 9/26/11)
2011 Sep 16, Burundi opposition leader Agathon Rwasa, suspected to be behind a spate of violent incidents, accused state security forces of massacring and torturing his supporters.
(AFP, 9/16/11)
2011 Sep 18, In Burundi armed men burst into a pub in Gatumba. One wounded man said an attacker yelled: "Make sure there's no survivors." Survivor Jackson Kabura said the men entered wearing military fatigues. The bar shooting left 39 people dead. The accused later claimed the massacre's "sponsors" were top security official General Maurice Mbonimpa, deputy police chief General Gervais Ndirakobuca and the commander of a special police unit, Colonel Desire Uwamahoro.
(AP, 9/19/11)(AFP, 9/23/11)(AFP, 12/13/11)(Econ, 3/10/12, p.60)
2011 Oct 20, In Somalia pro-government forces supported by foreign troops chased al-Shabab out of Mogadishu’s northernmost neighborhood, Deynile, in a dawn offensive. Al-Qaida-linked militants claimed to have killed 70 foreign African Union peacekeepers but an eyewitness said many of the bodies put on display were likely Somali government soldiers. An AU spokesman the next day said that the insurgents had stolen uniforms and dressed up scores of their own dead. The AU said 10 soldiers were killed, including 6 from Burundi, with two missing after intense fighting with insurgents. A week later it was reported that 51 Burundian soldiers were killed in the clash.
(AP, 10/20/11)(AP, 10/21/11)(AFP, 10/22/11)(AP, 10/28/11)
2011 Nov 21, Burundi security forces shot dead 18 "armed bandits" in clashes in the eastern province of Cankuzo, part of a new rebellion based in Ruvubu National Park.
(AFP, 11/22/11)
2011 Nov 22, A Burundi rights group, the Government Action Observatory (OAG), said government-backed death squads have killed more than 300 members of a former rebel group and opposition supporters in covert operations over the past five months.
(AFP, 11/22/11)
2011 Nov 27, Gunmen in Burundi murdered Sister Luckrecija Mamic, a Croatian nun, and an Italian charity worker in an apparent botched robbery and kidnapping. Sister Carla Brianza was later shot dead while Sister Carla Brianza, an Italian nun, fought off her attackers and escaped with relatively minor wounds. Two men, aged 20 and 24, were arrested for the attack after a shootout.
(AFP, 11/28/11)
2011 Nov 28, Burundi told delegates at a global anti-landmine summit in Phnom Penh that it had cleared its territory of landmines, becoming the 18th state party to do so. Myanmar was the only country recorded as laying new landmines last year, but the Intl. Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) said it has since been joined by Israel, Syria and Libya, bringing the current global use of landmines to its highest level since 2004.
(AP, 11/29/11)
2012 Jan 11, Alexis Sinduhije, the head of Burundi’s opposition Movement for Solidarity and Development, a former journalist, was arrested in Tanzania upon his arrival there from Uganda. On Jan 21 Burundi admitted that it had asked for the exiled Burundian opposition leader to be arrested in Tanzania and extradited to face murder charges.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 21, Burundi admitted that it had asked for an exiled Burundian opposition leader to be arrested in Tanzania and extradited to face murder charges. Alexis Sinduhije, the head of the opposition Movement for Solidarity and Development, a former journalist, was arrested in Tanzania's economic capital Dar es Salaam on January 11 upon his arrival there from Uganda.
(AFP, 1/21/12)
2012 Jan 24, Tanzanian police freed Burundian opposition leader Alexis Sinduhije, who was arrested two weeks ago in Dar es Salaam at Burundi's request. Sinduhije was expelled to Uganda.
(AFP, 1/24/12)
2012 May 2, Burundi blocked Human Rights Watch from holding a press conference to release a report on the country's political violence, which it blamed on state agents and armed opposition groups.
(AFP, 5/2/12)
2012 May 5, In Burundi an armed gang kidnapped, killed and dismembered overnight an albino girl (15) in Burundi's 18th such slaying in less than four years. Albinos Sans Frontieres said the government was failing to protect albinos and said everyone sentenced to prison in the killings had escaped.
(AFP, 5/6/12)
2012 Jun 20, A Burundian court sentenced journalist Hassan Ruvakuki and 13 others to life in prison on terrorism charges for a November attack launched from across the Tanzanian border, a ruling criticized by media watchdogs.
(AFP, 6/20/12)
2012 Jun 27, Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza pardoned "several thousand" prisoners in order to address prison overcrowding and celebrate the 50th anniversary of independence on July 1. Eloge Niyonzima, a journalist for a private radio station in Bubanza, was beaten up overnight by members of the ruling party's youth wing militia.
(AFP, 6/27/12)
2012 Jul 24, Burundi's anti-corruption court sentenced Faustin Ndikumana, an anti-graft activist, to five years in jail for "false declarations." Ndikumana was arrested February 7 after writing a letter in which he said candidates for the post of judge in Burundi had to pay a bribe, and that the justice minister was in part responsible for this state of affairs.
(AFP, 7/24/12)
2012 Jul 26, The UN's food agency said 10 Central African countries have agreed to take part in a regional initiative to monitor the Congo Basin, one of the world's largest primary rainforests. They included Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Rwanda and Sao Tome and Principe.
(AFP, 7/26/12)
2013 Sep 12, A UN official said at least 25,000 Burundian refugees living in Tanzania have been forcibly repatriated over the past month, describing a "dramatic" humanitarian situation.
(AFP, 9/12/13)
2013 Sep 13, Burundi opened an investigation into claims that a former ethnic Hutu rebel leader ordered the massacre of Congolese refugees in an attack almost a decade ago. The Banyamulenge, an ethnic Tutsi tribe from neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, in August accused Agathon Rwasa of ordering the killing of 166 Banyamulenge seeking refuge inside a camp in Burundi in 2004.
(Reuters, 9/13/13)
2013 Nov 10, Burundi officials said police have discovered dozens of human skulls during a search of the home of an Italian expatriate. Giuseppe Favaro, has been in custody since late October after he was caught trying to export two skulls to Thailand.
(AFP, 11/10/13)
2013 Nov 30, Five east African countries signed a protocol to establish a monetary union, in a first step towards creating a single currency. At a summit in Kampala, leaders from Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda inked the framework to set up a single market modelled after the eurozone.
(AFP, 11/30/13)
2013 Dec 9, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the US military to transport troops from Burundi into the Central African Republic to help quell the latest upsurge in violence there.
(AP, 12/10/13)
2014 Jan 28, Burundi's top lawyer, Isidore Rufyikiri, was sacked after criticizing the government and being accused of urging the people to rebel.
(AFP, 1/29/14)
2014 Feb 10, In Burundi at least 60 people perished in flooding and landslides following a night of torrential rain in Bujumbura that swept away hundreds of homes and cut off roads and power.
(AFP, 2/10/14)
2014 Feb 11, The Burundi Red Cross said torrential rains and landslides have left at least 77 people dead and about 12,000 displaced.
(Reuters, 2/11/14)
2014 Mar 8, In Burundi violent clashes in Bujumbura pitted opposition Movement for Solidarity and Development activists against police. 21 MSD activists were arrested.
(AFP, 3/16/14)(Econ, 3/29/14, p.50)
2014 Mar 10, A Burundian official said South Africa has expelled a diplomat from Burundi's embassy in connection with a raid on an exiled Rwandan general's Johannesburg home and Burundi is considering a response.
(Reuters, 3/10/14)
2014 Mar 12, Burundi charged opposition leader Alexis Sinduhije, who is on the run from police, and 71 party supporters with rebellion following March 8 clashes.
(AFP, 3/16/14)
2014 Mar 21, Burundi sentenced 21 activists from a key opposition party to life in jail for "armed revolt" after a jogging protest earlier this month turned into violent clashes with police.
(AFP, 3/21/14)
2014 Apr 17, Burundi’s ruling CNDD-FDD party voted to create a reconciliation commission. Opposition parties boycotted the vote saying it will shield the ruling party from accountability for past crimes..
(Reuters, 4/18/14)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Burundi
End of file.
