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U.N. Rights Council Presses for Inquiry in Burundi

At least 87 people were killed in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, last week when the police and security forces reacted to attacks on two military camps.Credit...Jean Pierre Harerimana/Reuters

GENEVA — Responding to chilling accounts of mass killings in Burundi, the United Nations’ top human rights body on Thursday called for an international investigation of abuses as part of an effort to curb the violence and prevent a wider regional conflict.

“Burundi is at bursting point, on the very cusp of a civil war,” said Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations human rights chief, at a special session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. “The time for piecemeal responses and fiddling round the edges is over.”

The Human Rights Council’s 47 members, including 13 African states and all five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, unanimously backed a resolution that called for a team of independent experts to go to Burundi as soon as possible to investigate abuses and to report back in March.

The resolution was an attempt to avert the escalation of killings and prevent mass atrocities, Keith Harper, the United States ambassador to the council, told reporters after the session.

The council’s session echoed deepening alarm in the Security Council and in African capitals over the wave of killings by government security forces and other armed groups in Burundi since April, when protests started over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to run for a third term.

At least 400 people have died as a result of the conflict in Burundi since April, many of them in extrajudicial killings, Mr. al-Hussein reported.

More than 3,496 people have been arrested, and human rights activists and independent journalists have fled in the course of a political turmoil that is also now creating a humanitarian crisis.

“There is a growing, alarming risk of regionalization of this crisis,” Mr. al-Hussein said, noting that about 220,000 people had fled to neighboring countries to escape the violence and intimidation that is catapulting Burundi back to its “deeply troubled, dark and horrendously violent past.”

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U.N. Holds Special Session on Burundi

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, called for those committing violence in Burundi to be held to account.

SOUNDBITE (English) Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Human rights violations in Burundi have continued to escalate and there is a growing, alarming risk of regionalisation of this crisis. We have documented 312 killings since public demonstrations against a possible third presidential term began, including 19 children. Over the last bloody weekend in Bujumbura, government figures indicate that another 87 people were killed, but figures we have received from other sources are considerably higher.” SOUNDBITE (English) Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Those responsible for these serious violations and abuses of human rights must be brought to book without delay. They need to be independent, effective investigations and justice, and those who have been arbitrarily detained in unknown locations need to be accounted for, in line with the rule of law.” SOUNDBITE (French) Elisa Nkerabirori, Representative of Burundi: (referring to the last weekend incidents in Bujumbura) “We praise the professionalism shown by the police and army corps to limit the damage and protect innocent populations. We are surprised that those acts, under other skies, qualified as terrorism, are timidly denounced by a part of the international community. This quasi silence in the presence of such attacks may be interpreted as support for the radical opposition.” SOUNDBITE (French) Elisa Nkerabirori, Representative of Burundi: “Mister president, the government of Burundi expects today the firm condemnation of the international community of the radical opposition which organises attacks from foreign soil.” SOUNDBITE (English) Keith Harper, US representative to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: “On December 11, rebel insurgents initiated attacks on military installations, exacerbating an increasingly unstable situation. In response, Burundi security forces reportedly rounded up dozens of men, some of whom were later found dead on the streets of Bujumbura. We condemn the attacks on the military installations. We call for an immediate independent investigation into the civilian deaths, and for the government of Burundi to publicly reject excessive use of force.”

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Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, called for those committing violence in Burundi to be held to account.CreditCredit...Denis Balibouse/Reuters

The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, on Wednesday decided to send a special envoy, Jamal Benomar, to Burundi and the region for urgent talks to defuse the crisis. The African Union’s Peace and Security Council posted a message on Twitter on Thursday saying that “Africa will NOT allow another Genocide to take place on its soil,” and calling for urgent action to stop the killings.

Mr. al-Hussein, the United Nations human rights chief, said the leadership in Burundi should disarm pro-government militias, halt torture and resume a dialogue with the political opposition. He added that sanctions, asset freezes and travel bans should be imposed on those responsible for abuses and that the country’s borders should be monitored, possibly using drones, to cut off the flow of arms.

The crisis calls for urgent, concerted, decisive attention from the international community, Mr. al-Hussein said, and “involvement of the International Criminal Court in this regard would be of great importance.”

Burundi’s population now lives in constant fear, witnessing extrajudicial executions on a daily basis, said Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, a prominent human rights activist who survived an assassination attempt in August. “Families no longer have the right to bury their dead, nor to mourn them,” Mr. Mbonimpa said.

At least 87 people were killed in the capital, Bujumbura, last Friday after unidentified gunmen attacked two military camps, Mr. al-Hussein said, and reports to his office suggested that the figure was much higher.

The police and security forces locked down opposition strongholds and conducted house-to-house searches, dragging young men from their houses and reportedly killing some of them on the spot, he said.

Opposition to the council’s resolution came only from Elisa Nkerabirori, a representative of Burundi’s Human Rights Ministry, who blamed the violence on radical members of the opposition and urban guerrillas, while praising the “professionalism” of the police and army.

We have allegations that those individuals she’s calling professional tied people’s hands behind their back and shot them,” Mr. Harper, the American envoy, said to journalists in response to Ms. Nkerabirori’s remarks.

The inflammatory rhetoric coming from government leaders in recent weeks evoked memories of the genocide in Rwanda as well as Burundi’s 12-year civil war that left 300,000 people dead before it ended in 2005, Adama Dieng, the United Nations special adviser on genocide, reminded the council.

“We cannot afford to stand by as the international community did at that time,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 10 of the New York edition with the headline: World Briefing | United Nations; Investigators Will Head to Burundi. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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