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| Articles about Endemic |
| | UN condemns "endemic" sexual violence, torture and killings in Burundi, calls for justice | | 2006-11-28 12:31:00 | | From ReutersBUJUMBURA, 27 November (IRIN) - Human-rights violations have continued in Burundi, despite a new democratically elected government, according to a senior United Nations official in the country.Sexual violence is commonplace, while arbitrary killings, arrests and torture are also happening, according to Ismael Diallo, the director of the human-rights division of the UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB)."The human-rights situation has really not improved since the previous government; it has more or less remained the same, except for abuses by the intelligence services, which have become noticeably worse," Diallo said.Burundi is emerging from 13 years of civil strife during which human rights were regularly abused. The current government swept to power in a landslide election in August 2005 pledging to restore order.Diallo noted that abuses by Burundi's national intelligence service, the Service National de Renseignement (SNR), had grown significantly worse over the past few months, with its agents carrying out arbitrary arrests and torturing detainees suspected of being allied to Burundi's last active rebel group, the Forces nationales de libération.Bodies foundIn an October report, an international watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW), accused the SNR of torture and possible involvement in extrajudicial killings that it said went unpunished."Intelligence agents are believed to have been involved in the killing or presumed killing of at least 38 people over the past year," the report said. "Thirty-one people are currently missing and presumed dead in Muyinga [province in the north] with several bodies and body parts having been found in a local river."HRW said that in July, people in Muyinga told human-rights organisations that family members had been arrested and could not be found. At least seven bodies were recovered from the region's River Ruvubu. However, Burundi's government spokesman and minister of information, Ramadhan Karenga, told IRIN the HRW rep... | | By: Agathon Rwasa | | |
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