IRIN – As Burundi approaches elections designed to cap the country’s democratic transition after years of civil conflict, there is growing concern about worsening security and limits to political freedom.

“The situation is explosive,” Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, chairman of the Association for the Promotion of Human and Prisoner Rights (APRODH), told IRIN.

“Demobilised people [former members of now defunct armed groups] have become uncontrollable,” he said. (Read an IRIN story on the prevalence of weapons and political youth wings)

“Youths from the [ruling] CNDD-FDD party cause many problems in the country. But in reaction, the [opposition] FRODEBU youth has become very active. Judging by their name, Intakangwa, which means ‘those who cannot be frightened’, they are prepared to respond to any provocation,” said Mbonimpa.

Elections for councillors in Burundi’s 117 communes take place on 21 May. There is a presidential election on 28 June, a legislative poll on 23 July, and senators will be elected on 28 July. In September, Burundians will vote for heads of 2,639 “collines”, the country’s smallest administrative units.

“People are killed in their houses for unknown reasons,” according to François Bizimana, spokesman for the CNDD opposition party.

“When we organize meetings, the Imbonerakure break them up and beat our supporters,” he said, referring to the ruling party’s youth arm, whose name means “those with foresight

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88313

IRIN – Failed rains in northern Burundi have left tens of thousands of people needing food aid and prompted many to seek work in neighbouring Rwanda to earn enough to feed their families.

Some 35,710 households (about 180,000 people) in Kirundo province require food and seeds, according to government officials and UN agencies*, who last week visited the province.

“It is clear that the population of the communes of Busoni, Bugabira and part of Kirundo face a food shortage that can even worsen if nothing is done,” said Floribert Kubwayezu of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Charles Dei, the humanitarian coordinator in Burundi, who also serves as country director of the World Food Programme (WFP), told IRIN that the lack of rain had adversely affected the January bean and maize harvest. This season accounts for 35 percent of Burundi’s total food production.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88209

AfDB – A major delegation led by the AfDB President, Donald Kaberuka, will attend a Round Table meeting on the implementation of the Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura, on 5 and 6 November.

The International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) is a mechanism for regional peace, security, stability and development in the eleven core countries of Africa’s Great Lakes region*, an area with a population of 282 million and an estimated 2009 GDP of USD 260 billion.

Read more – http://www.afdb.org/en/news-events/article/afdb-active-support-to-the-great-lakes-region-5271/

World Bank – The World Bank’s Board of Directors today approved a grant in the amount of SDR 16 million (US$25 million equivalent) to the Republic of Burundi to help finance a Third Economic Reform Support Grant (ERSG III).

ERSG III is the second grant in a programmatic series of two annual operations designed to assist the Government of Burundi in implementing policies and institutional reforms to promote growth and achieve sustainable reductions in poverty. It proposes to continue to support efforts aimed at reforming public finance management and improving fiscal transparency and accountability. It will also help support reforms in the business legal and institutional environment in order to foster private sector-led growth, as well as reforms in the coffee and domestic petroleum sectors.

Read more – http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22372150~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html

For the second time this week, the United Nations refugee agency today warned more than 2,000 Congolese in Burundi not to return to the strife-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which they fled during ethnic fighting in 2004.

The latest warning from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) follows an incident yesterday when more than 400 Congolese from the recently closed camp in Gihinga, central Burundi, were stopped from entering their country by DRC immigration officials.

“UNHCR has repeatedly urged the refugees not to go back to their native South Kivu province in DRC for the moment, stressing that that under the prevailing security conditions neither the Government authorities nor UNHCR would be in a position to guarantee their safety on return,” agency spokesperson Andrej Mahecic told a news briefing in Geneva.

DRC immigration services said their actions were based on security concerns for the group. The refugees had boarded 11 trucks provided by Burundian government yesterday morning, leaving behind another group of some 500 refugees waiting for their turn to go home. When they reached the border they found it closed and the Burundian authorities took them back to Gihinga.

Read more – http://www0.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32486&Cr=democratic&Cr1=congo

5 October 2009 – The United Nations refugee agency today warned more than 2,000 Congolese sheltering in Burundi against returning to their homes in conflict-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Congolese refugees from a region of South Kivu province which borders with Burundi have refused to relocate to a newly established camp further east and decided instead to return west to the Uvira region of South Kivu, their homeland.

For months, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Burundian authorities have led an intensive information campaign to prepare the refugees for voluntary relocation, part of a consolidation exercise involving the closure of the makeshift camp housing this particular group of Congolese until last week.

Read more – http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32425&Cr=Democratic&Cr1=congo