Concept

Burundi

Summary
Burundi (bəˈrʊndi or bəˈrʌndi ), officially the Republic of Burundi (Repuburika y’Uburundi u.βu.ɾǔː.ndi; Jamuhuri ya Burundi; République du Burundi buʁundi, byʁyndi), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and East Africa. It is bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and southeast, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west; Lake Tanganyika lies along its southwestern border. The capital cities are Gitega and Bujumbura, the latter being the country's largest city. The Twa, Hutu and Tutsi peoples have lived in Burundi for at least 500 years. For more than 200 of those years, Burundi was an independent kingdom, until the beginning of the 20th century, when it became a German colony. After the First World War and Germany's defeat, the League of Nations "mandated" the territory to Belgium. After the Second World War, this transformed into a United Nations Trust Territory. Both Germans and Belgians ruled Burundi and Rwanda as a European colony known as Ruanda-Urundi. Burundi and Rwanda had never been under common rule until the time of European colonization of Africa. Burundi gained independence in 1962 and initially had a monarchy, but a series of assassinations, coups and a general climate of regional instability culminated in the establishment of a republic and a one-party state in 1966. Bouts of ethnic cleansing and ultimately two civil wars and genocides during the 1970s and again in the 1990s resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, leaving the economy undeveloped and the population one of the world's poorest. The year 2015 witnessed large-scale political strife as President Pierre Nkurunziza opted to run for a third term in office, a coup attempt failed and the country's parliamentary and presidential elections were broadly criticised by members of the international community. The sovereign state of Burundi's political system is that of a presidential representative democratic republic based upon a multi-party state.
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