One protester killed by police in Burundi protest over president's re-election bid

Xinhua

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One demonstrator was killed and several others injured when police fired live bullets to disperse the crowd on Monday in Mugamba, a region of Burundi's Bururi province, the national radio said, as protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third term entered their fifth week.

Police opened fire when dozens of demonstrators were heading to the Mugamba communal office, with one person shot dead and an unknown number of others injured, Burundi National Radio reported.

Protests also took place in the Bururi communes of Matana and Vyanda, and several neighborhoods of the capital Bujumbura, after a two-day truce.

In Matana and Vyanda, demonstrators barricaded roads, burned tires and sang songs against Nkurunziza's re-election bid.

In the Bujumbura neighborhoods, police agents fired into the air to disperse demonstrators who were proceeding to the city center.

In Kanyosha, one of the neighborhoods, protesters burned a passenger minibus, witnesses told Xinhua.

"Passengers were ordered to get off the minibus. And then they burned the minibus," said the witnesses.

Burundi has been in turmoil since April 25 when Nkurunziza announced that he will run for a third term in the June elections, despite warnings at home and abroad.

Clashes between protesters and police, mainly in Bujumbura, have left more than 30 dead, according to Burundi's civil societies.

Nkurunziza has been in power since 2005.

Opponents say his re-election bid is in defiance of the constitution that limits the president to two terms in office.

The country's constitutional court however endorsed his candidacy, arguing that his first term does not count as he was appointed by parliament, not elected in a universal suffrage. Enditem