Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza has appealed to his people to end weeks of demonstrations over his quest for a third term in office.
“There is peace in the whole country, including in the capital city where the coup-makers were operating,” he said in a radio broadcast after a day of clashes in which at least a dozen people were killed.
“Whoever wants to bring trouble in the country will not go far.”
He spoke after a presidential spokesman had debunked the news that General Godefroid Niyombare, who had announced the president’s ouster on Wednesday while he was abroad had been arrested.
Niyombare “has not been arrested”, presidential spokesman Gervais Abayeho told Reuters later. He said the source of his earlier statement had corrected the information.
Burundi was plunged into deep crisis after Nkurunziza announced he was running for another five-year term, with clashes between police and protesters stirring memories of an ethnically driven civil war that ended just a decade ago.
Opponents say his decision violates the constitution and a deal to end the war that pitted rebel groups of the majority Hutu population, including one led by Nkurunziza, against the army which was then commanded by minority Tutsis.
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