ICC opens probe into Burundi atrocities

Nairobi. A top Tutsi general was gunned down in Burundi on Monday, as international prosecutors announced they were launching a preliminary probe into a litany of atrocities in the troubled central African nation.

A wave of unrest, targeted assassinations and alleged torture has left hundreds dead and forced more than 270,000 to flee the country since last April, and some analysts warn Burundi may be on the brink of a new civil war.

General Athanase Kararuza, a security advisor to one of Burundi’s vice presidents, was killed along with his wife in a gun and grenade attack as they were dropping their daughter off at school in the capital Bujumbura.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon led international condemnation, saying: “All such acts of violence serve no purpose other than to worsen the already volatile situation in Burundi.”

A family source said Kararuza’s daughter was seriously injured but her life was not in danger, contradicting a Burundian security source that earlier said she too had died.

Kararuza was a former commander of the African Union-led peacekeeping force in the Central African Republic. It was not clear who carried out the assassination.

“Those who killed my colleague General Kararuza and (carried out) other similar attacks are trying to sow divisions in the army and the police,” presidential spokesman Willy Nyamitwe wrote on Twitter.

On Sunday a police colonel, also a Tutsi, was seriously wounded in an attack, while Human Rights Minister Martin Nivyabandi and his wife had a close escape. (AFP)