Quick post with links on Burundi, where things have steadily gotten worse all year but may be descending even more quickly with a recent spike in violence.

Here’s Ty McCormick at Foreign Policy on recent armed attacks on military bases, and what it means for the broader political situation in Burundi. A month ago Kate Cronin-Furman and Michael Broache noted that the violence in Burundi is a political conflict, trying to steer conversation in that direction. However, as Cara Jones notes, the discourse around the conflict is changing form, and may be sign of increasing ethnic conflict:

Since the outbreak of protests against Nkurunziza’s third term, both government and opposition have used ethnicized rhetoric… The government uses ethnic rhetoric presumably to signal to the opposition the potential violence that could come their way and incite citizens to participate in violence. The opposition uses ethnicized rhetoric to push for international intervention, which has the potential of changing the makeup of government.

More concerning than the rhetoric, however, are the ethnic patterns of violence that appear to be emerging. There are reports, for example, that security forces have targeted protesters in Tutsi minority-heavy districts of Bujumbura. These individuals have been arrested, tortured and subjected to other forms of violence. Weekend violence resulted in at least 87 deaths, and witness statements and information on victims’ ethnicity strongly suggest that many of the victims were disproportionately Tutsi.

Refugees International published a report [pdf] that Burundian refugees are being recruited in refugee camps in Rwanda, with negative consequences for all of the refugees involved.

In a piece at Blank Spot Project, journalist Anna Roxvall tells several stories from Burundi over the last few months. The article includes several vignettes that demonstrate the heightened levels of violence that people are enduring. This is just one excerpt (including references to murder and rape):

The water in the Kinyankonge River runs, dirt-brown, down its furrow. A few young men have set up a make-shift bar on a slope and play an edgy Afrobeat through cracked speakers. It’s hot.

This neighborhood along the river is called Mutakura and is the area where the biggest protests against the government raged this spring. Many young men were killed during the clashes there, which is considered the seat of the opposition by police and the government.

”This place used to be bustling with people who came for the clay to make bricks,” says 22-year-old Alain, balancing on the porous river bank.

Nowadays, nobody dares to begin new construction. In the ongoing conflict, the river has turned into a no-name graveyard. In the morning, the people who live here find corpses that have been dumped under the cover of the dark.

”It’s usually not people from here, so I think it’s people who have ’disappeared’ from other parts of the city,” Alain says.

The corpses are mostly men, but one time there was a woman. Someone had violated her with a stick.

Alice, who is 27, also found a dead body here two weeks ago.”It was impossible to see who it was, he was back-tied and had a rice bag over his head,” she says.

We stand there and consider the plastic bags, trash and old shoes that are swirled around and getting stuck on the river bottom. Alice puts her arm around a little girl who has joined us and then makes an irritated gesture toward the mess in the river.

”This affects our children very much. How are they supposed to be able to focus on their education if they find dead bodies on their way to school?”

Update – Dec. 15: Ty McCormick published a follow-up report on the state oppression that followed the armed attack on military bases. While the attacks did happen, a majority of those killed by security forces afterwards were not involved, but were the victims of state revenge.