United Nations experts on Monday voiced deep concerns about a surge in serious human rights violations in Burundi, including attacks against political opponents.
“These violations were allegedly committed by state agents or by individuals acting with their complicity,” they said, “in a climate of widespread impunity”.
The experts said that between January 2024 and May 2025, Burundian civil society organisations documented at least 200 cases of sexual violence, including child rape.
They also documented 58 enforced disappearances, 62 acts of torture, 892 arbitrary detentions, and 605 extrajudicial executions.
“We deplore the fact that these serious human rights violations are being used to intimidate the population during election periods, for the benefit of the ruling party,” the experts warned.
In a June election in the Great Lakes nation, the incumbent CNDD-FDD party swept 96 percent of the vote and all 100 seats in parliament.
UN experts are independent figures appointed by the Human Rights Council, mandated to report their findings. They do not, therefore, speak for the United Nations itself.
President Evariste Ndayishimiye took the reins of the country in 2020 after the death of his predecessor, Pierre Nkurunziza, who ruled with an iron fist for 15 years.
Ndayishimiye has switched between signs of seeking to open up and toughening his control of the country including through attacks on human rights, according to non-government groups and UN experts.
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