In its 28th annual world report made this Thursday 18 January, the Human Rights Watch has published a 643-page report reviewing the human rights practices in more than 90 countries including Burundi. The experts of the Human Rights Watch report that the political and human rights crisis that erupted in April 2015 continued through 2017, as government forces targeted real and perceived opponents with near total impunity.
“The violence in 2017 claimed scores of lives. Dead bodies of people killed in unknown circumstances were regularly found across the country,” say the experts referring to figures of Burundian and international human rights organizations.
They also say several grenade attacks took place in bars and elsewhere across the country in 2017, killing and injuring many people including children. “The identity of the perpetrators was often unknown,”say the experts.
During the presentation of the 2017 report in December, Minister of Public Security, Alain Guillaume Bunyoni said there was a significant decrease in crimes compared to the previous year. “Assassinations decreased from 401 in 2016 to 277 in 2017, terrorist acts from 134 in 2016 to 11 in 2017 and illegal possession of firearms decreased from 161 cases in 2016 to 42 in 2017,” he said.
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