A failed coup and ongoing political conflict in Burundi have sparked a regional refugee crisis and stalled much-needed development projects in one of the world’s poorest countries.
This after Burundi spent the past decade attempting to overcome a post-independence period marred by a brutal civil war played out largely along ethnic lines. The leaders of the two major ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis, struck a cease-fire agreement in 2003 and two years later, the country’s parliament elected Pierre Nkurunziza — a former Hutu militia leader — president.
The 10 years of relative peace allowed humanitarian partners to transition from emergency relief to long-term development projects in a country consistently ranked among the five poorest in the world. Now many of those partners have evacuated, as the country’s political situation has unraveled over the past month.
About the author
Andrew Green@_andrew_green
Andrew Green, a 2025 Alicia Patterson Fellow, works as a contributing reporter for Devex from Berlin.
