BUJUMBURA, Burundi
Col. Jean Bikomagu, Burundi's former army chief-of-staff, was killed in his Bujumbura home on Saturday, according to a police spokesman.
Nkurikiye Pierre, deputy spokesman for the Burundian police, told Anadolu Agency that unidentified attackers had shot Bikomagu in his home, killing him instantly.
Bikomagu began serving as army chief-of-staff in 1993, the same year that the country’s first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated.
He remained at the helm of the army during the country’s bloody conflict between Hutus and Tutsis, which finally ended with a 2005 peace agreement.
Following Bikomagu’s murder on Saturday, the African Union issued a Sunday statement describing recent unrest in Burundi as a “catastrophe”.
Notably, on August 2 – shortly after incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza won a third term in office – Gen. Adolphe Nshimirimana, Burundi’s powerful spy chief and a Nkurunziza ally, was also killed in the capital.
Burundi has been rocked by protest since April, when the ruling party named Nkurunziza – in power since 2005 – its candidate for the presidency.
The country’s opposition, which boycotted the polls, says Nkurunziza lacks the constitutional right to sit for a third term.
