Burundi is an East African country, with Gitega serving as its capital (Bujumbura before 24 December 2018). The country's capital is Bujumbura, and it has a population of 11,178,921 people. Burundi's two major groups, the Hutus (85% of the population) and the Tutsis (14% of the population), have constantly been in conflict since the 1960s, and the ethnic conflict in Burundi has since led to the 1972 Burundian Genocide and the Burundian Civil War.
History[]
The location of Burundi
Burundi was colonized as a part of German East Africa in the late 19th century, and its original capital was Gitega. However, in 1924 it was ceded to Belgium as Ruanda-Urundi following the German Empire's defeat in World War I, and the country would be ruled jointly with neighboring Rwanda for many years. On 20 January 1959, Burundi was granted independence from Belgium with Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi being its first independent leader. Under the rule of Mwambutsa, ethnic tensions rose between the Tutsis and Hutus, and in 1965 Prime Minister Pierre Ngendandumwe was assassinated by a Rwandan Tutsi during the Congo Crisis. In 1966, Michel Micombero led a military coup that ended the monarchy and replaced it with a military dictatorship, and the country was dominated by ethnic tensions, leading to genocides in 1972 and 1990. The Burundians fought amongst each other in the 1990s as the Rwandan Civil War broke out in neighboring Rwanda due to rising tensions between the Tutsis and Hutus in that country. Only in 2005 would the Burundian Civil War end with Pierre Nkurunziza's seizure of power, and Burundi became a de facto dictatorship with Nkurunziza as its leader. He backed rebels in the Second Congo War in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and his dictatorial rule led to a failed 2015 coup led by Godefroid Niyombare, which was quelled. However, Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term in office, winning the elections, and he had to deal with dissent among military deserters and political dissidents, employing the military to crush the rebels and all coup plotters. From 2015 onwards, Burundi was the site of political chaos as various factions competed for power following the failure of Niyombare's military coup.