Burundi: Attacks by Ruling Party Youth League Members

(Human Rights Watch) – Members of the Burundi ruling party’s youth league, the Imbonerakure, have brutally killed, tortured, and severely beaten scores of people across the country in recent months, Human Rights Watch said today. The killings and other ill-treatment reflect the widespread impunity for Imbonerakure members and the government’s unwillingness to prosecute or rein in the group. Over the past three months, members of the Imbonerakure, “those who see far” in Kirundi, the predominant language in Burundi, used clubs to beat to death a 15-year-old boy, drove a knife into the eye of one victim, blinding him, and attacked others with knives, clubs, and wooden poles. The Imbonerakuremembers cut out the eye of another man, then stomped him to death. Imbonerakuremembers have also set up unofficial roadblocks in multiple provinces, sometimes detaining and beating passersby and extorting money or stealing their possessions.

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