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1st LD Writethru: Burundi's opposition leader shot dead in capital

Xinhua, September 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

Burundi's opposition leader Patrice Gahungu was shot dead on Monday night as he was heading home at Gasenyi in the capital Bujumbura, his family told Xinhua Tuesday.

Gahungu was the spokesman of Burundi's Union for Peace and Development (UPD-Zigamibanga) opposition party.

"My husband was ambushed around 22:30 (20:30 GMT) on his way home. He was coming from a bar close to our home. We heard a lot of gunshots for a short time and I was informed that he was killed," said Clemence Nsabiyimbona, wife of Gahungu.

She indicated that she walked to the place of the ambush along with her neighbors and realized that Gahungu had already died.

"The assassination of my husband must be politically motivated," said Nsabiyimbona, adding that two windows of Gahungu's car were damaged by bullets.

The victim was alone in the car when his car was ambushed in a road turn, just about 200 meters to his house.

On May 23, UPD Chairman Zedi Feruzi was also killed near his house in Ngagara neighborhood in the capital Bujumbura and his killers have not yet been identified.

UPD-Zigamibanga is one of the main opposition parties in the east African nation.

Most opposition leaders have fled the country as they are the target of killings.

Since late April with the beginning of protests against the third term bid of President Pierre Nkurunziza, the Burundian civil society reported that more than 100 people have been killed mainly in the capital Bujumbura.

Despite the protests, Nkurunziza was re-elected on July 21 in a controversial presidential election boycotted by the opposition.

In another but related story, residents in Kamenge and Cibitoke neighborhoods in the north of the capital told Xinhua that they discovered four bodies on Tuesday morning.

Police Deputy-Spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye told Xinhua that a dead body found at the sixth avenue in Cibitoke was identified as a driver at the head office of the ruling party, the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD).

Nkurikiye also said that the other corpse discovered in Nyabagere River was identified as that of a bus driver in Musaga in the south of the capital Bujumbura.

Residents in Kamenge indicated that two other corpses were discovered behind the fence of the Kamenge Youths' Center. Endit