Hundreds of thousands of people have fled Burundi since the crisis began in 2015. Copyright: EU/ECHO/Anouk Delafortrie. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Two years into the crisis that has been tearing Burundi apart, the situation in the country remains grim. Adama Dieng, the United Nations special adviser for the prevention of genocide, wrote a letter to the UN Security Council in March 2017 warning of the risk of “mass” violence. And in the same month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein addressed global human rights issues, expressing particular worry over Burundi: In Burundi, I am concerned that the democratic space has now been virtually extinguished. Grave human rights violations and abuses by security forces and the Imbonerakure militia continue to be reported, including increasing allegations of enforced disappearances, torture and mass arbitrary arrests [of opposition members]…Following the release of the report by the UN Independent Investigation on Burundi in September 2016, the Government of Burundi suspended its cooperation with my Office in Burundi pending ongoing review of our MOU. The crisis began after President Pierre Nkurunziza made the controversial decision to seek a third term in office, “a move deemed illegal by the opposition as well as members of his own party,” explains Radio France Internationale: Et elle a déjà fait des morts, de 500 (ONU) à quelque 2000 personnes tuées selon les ONG, des centaines de portés disparus et poussé quelque 400 000 personnes à l’exil. There have been deadly consequences. Some 500 to 2,000 people have been killed, according to the UN and some NGOs, hundreds have been reported missing, and nearly 400,000 people have been exiled. Nkurunziza’s re-election bid had a devastating impact on the trust between the administration and the population, immediately triggering several protests. The protesters claimed that a third term is a violation of the country's constitution which says no president can be elected more than twice. Furthermore, Nkurunziza also stated that he will do away with the 2005 Arusha accords, a peace agreement created to implement a power-sharing deal for political institutions and to integrate the various rebel groups into the state military, using an ethnic quota system to ensure more balanced representation. Those two issues provoked instant mass demonstrations, clashes with the polices, and the flight of large numbers of ethnic groups. The exodus was triggered by the permanent threat posed by Nkurunziza's youth wing, the Imbonerakure, who are implicated in political violence targeting opposition members. According to the Radio France Internationale article, the government rejects these accounts despite the overwhelming amount of evidence, claiming they are part of a political agenda and an international plot to oust the current leadership. However, a video that circulated on the internet in April 2017 features young members of the Imbonerakure singing slogans that encourage raping Tutsi women. The ruling party and the Imbonerakure are ethnically composed in majority of Hutus. The other major ethnic group in the country is the Tutsis, whose tense relationship with the Hutus are at the origin of past conflicts in Rwanda and Congo. On April 4, 2017, a blogger for the local news site Yaga, Spageon Ngabo, appealed for them to stop such behavior and focus on other challenges: Quand l’Onu vous a taxés d’être une milice du parti au pouvoir, vous l’avez réfuté, clamant haut et fort que vous êtes « des partisans de la démocratie, épris de paix, fortement attachés à la République et animés d’un esprit de tolérance, victimes d’une campagne de diabolisation et de médisance »(nldr) . Sur ce, je voudrais de tout mon cœur croire que cette vidéo n’est que pur montage, car malgré tout, vous êtes mes frères et aux yeux du monde, l’image que vous donnez affecte tous les jeunes du Burundi. Si je voulais vous prendre au mot, je vous demanderais pourquoi vous vous efforcez de donner raison à tous ces colons impérialistes qui nous traitent de sauvages. Chers imbonerakure, le Burundi est un grand chantier, et les défis qui pourraient nous inspirer des chansons guerrières ne manquent pas: notre petit pays a une population estimée à 11,1 millions d’habitants dont 70% des jeunes pour une superficie de 27 834 km². Nous avons un PIB par habitant de 315 $ avec un taux de croissance de – 2,4 % en 2015 et un chômage qui va croissant. Nous sommes parmi les pays les plus corrompus au monde, le deuxième pays le plus malheureux au monde d’après les Nations Unies, le troisième plus pauvre aussi en 2016.