Police fire tear gas at Burundi protesters

Burundi police fired tear gas and beat protesters demanding president Pierre Nkurunziza end his bid for a third term, in a resurgence of unrest that has stoked fears of ethnic conflict in Africa’s Great Lakes. 

At least eight of the flag-waving and chanting demonstrators were dragged off by police yesterday. Some in the crowd responded by pelting officers with stones and rocks.

Shots were fired at the offices of the European Union’s representative in Bujumbura, prompting the mission to demand the government step up its security. The EU gave no more details.

Rights groups say at least 20 people have died in three weeks of clashes between security forces and protesters who say Nkurunziza’s ambitions violate the constitution and a peace deal that ended an ethnically fuelled civil war in 2005.

Laying the same charges against the president, a group of renegade generals tried and failed to overthrow him last week. The government said late on Monday it would treat any future demonstrators as accomplices.

However, crowds gathered again in the suburb of Nyakabiga yesterday, shouting: “We will not stop until he gives up the third term.”

The longer unrest continues the more chance that a conflict, which up until now has been a struggle for power, reopens old wounds in a region with a history of mass ethnic killing.