East African heads of state states are expected in Tanzania summit that is expected to break Burundi’s political deadlock.
The Leaders are also going to push for peaceful elections.
Twenty people have been killed in protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term, which the opposition says violates the constitution and the Arusha peace accord that ended the civil war in 2005.
The heads of state of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi, which form the East African Community (EAC) common market, are expected to attend the extraordinary summit in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday.
Tanzania’s president Jakaya Kikwete, who chairs the EAC, has sent a team of regional foreign affairs ministers on a fact-finding mission ahead of the summit.
The violence being witnessed in Burundi is the worst since the end of civil war in the small East African Nation.
President Pierre Nkurunziza is a former rebel and he says that he is entitled to run for a third term because he was first appointed to the role by parliament in 2005.
The constitution states a president should govern only for two terms, but earlier this month a court upheld Mr Nkurunziza’s interpretation.
The UN said last Friday that more than 50,000 Burundians had fled their country since April because of fears over pre-election violence.
More than 50,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled Burundi to neighboring Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo in the past month, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said.
