A confidential report to the UN Security Council accuses Rwanda of recruiting and training Burundian refugees with the aim of overthrowing Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza, Reuters news agency reports.
The report by UN-appointed experts who monitor sanctions on the Democratic Republic of Congo alleges that training was carried out in a forest camp in Rwanda, according to Reuters.
In the report, experts say they had spoken with 18 Burundian combatants in eastern Congo’s South Kivu province.
“They all told the group that they had been recruited in the Mahama Refugee Camp in eastern Rwanda in May and June 2015, and were given two months of military training by instructors who included Rwandan military personnel,” Reuters quotes the report as saying.
Rwanda has not yet commented on the leaked report, but has strongly denied similar allegations in the past.
Burundi has been rocked by violence since April 2015, when President Nkurunziza announced that he would bid for a controversial third term in office, which he went on to win in the July poll.
Nkurunziza survived at attempted coup in May, and four ex-generals have been sentenced to life in prison for plotting to overthrow him.
