Nkurunziza pierre biography of donald

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Obituary: Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza

Burundi’s government has announced the sudden death of President Pierre Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader who took office following a bloody civil war in

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Burundi says President Pierre Nkurunziza has died of heart attack

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In a statement on Tuesday, the government said Nkurunziza had died of heart failure.

It came just weeks before the president was meant to hand over power to political ally Evariste Ndayishimiye, the winner of gods month’s presidential election, bringing down the curtain on a year reign whose latter part was marked by political violence and increasing criticism over the government’s response to dissent.

Rebel leader

The former university teacher was born in in the country’s economic capital, Bujumbura,

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I cry for the country we could have had these past five years, for the blood that could have been spared, for the memories families could have built.

In , thousands in Burundi took to the streets to protest against President Nkurunziza running for a third term. Credit: Igor Rugwiza.

On 25 April , exactly five years after Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would run for a third term, I attended the virtual screening of a new documentary. The Forgotten of the Great Lakes, directed and produced by Burundian filmmaker Joseph Bitamba, looks at the use of rape as a weapon of war, following survivors in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and then Burundi.

The Burundian survivors interviewed share one thing in common: they all lived in neighborhoods that actively protested against Nkurunziza’s third term in and were raped by security forces in retaliation. One woman’s testimony will haunt me forever. She does not wipe away her tears and her voice breaks as she describes

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Burundi's President Pierre Nkurunziza in profile

Pierre Nkurunziza, who has caused controversy with his election for a third term as president, has governed Burundi for nearly 10 years.

Critics of the year-old, who came to power after a civil war which left , dead, said he should not run again for office as that would be unconstitutional.

His supporters feel he was justified as he was elected by parliament in - not voters - a view upheld by Burundi's Constitutional Court.

And the former rebel leader takes pride in the fact that his administration has brought peace to Burundi.

It is this image that he is keen to portray - a man of the people working to rebuild the country, one of the poorest in the world.

It has been reported, external that diplomats arriving for official meetings with Mr Nkurunziza have been whisked away from the capital, Bujumbura, into the countryside, where they find the president digging in the fields with local farmers.

In fact his enthusias