1,475 incidents of armed violence reported in Burundi in 2014

A total of 1,475 incidents of armed violence were reported in Burundi in 2014, a report by an international NGO has shown.

Speaking to Xinhua on Tuesday on the sidelines of a workshop on the fight against Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) in Bujumbura, Armed Violence Observatory's country director for Burundi Julie Claveau said the incidents were perpetrated by 1,989 actors and they affected 1,876 victims.

She said 25 percent of the victims were killed and 60 percent of them were injured.

The major causes of armed violence, she pointed out, were land conflicts, armed robberies, rape, domestic violence, gender based violence, suicide acts, mistakes by security forces and clashes of political nature.

Claveau said these incidents were as a result of possession of small arms and light weapons that were acquired illegally by the civilian population during the Burundian civil war (1993-2008).

She urged the government to accelerate the national program to disarm the civilian population, reinforce regional cooperation to boost the fight against illegal trafficking of SALW and pay more attention to protecting the state's weapons' warehouses. Endi