The UN human rights chief voiced alarm on Friday at the spiralling violence in Burundi over “extremely disturbing” allegations of security forces gang raping women, ethnic killings and mass graves.
Burundi has been sliding deeper into violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April his intention to run in elections last July.
The unrest has intensified since his re-election, with political assassinations on both sides, attacks against the police and summary executions.
“All the alarm signals, including the increasing ethnic dimension of the crisis, are flashing red,” Pierre Nkurunziza warned in a statement.
Zeid warned that “deeply worrying new trends are emerging in Burundi, including cases of sexual violence by security forces and a sharp increase in enforced disappearances and torture cases.”
He called for an urgent investigation into a spike in violence in Bujumbura last month and witness accounts of at least nine mass graves in and around the capital, including one in a military camp allegedly containing more than 100 bodies of people killed on December 11.
