Burundi crisis: Zeid calls for robust action by international community to avert another civil war

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein today urged the international community to take “robust, decisive” action on the situation in Burundi, to avert a civil war that could have serious ethnic overtones as well as alarming regional consequences.“Burundi is at bursting point, on the very cusp of a civil war. The carnage of last week confirmed the extent to which violence and intimidation are catapulting the country back to the past — to Burundi’s deeply troubled, dark and horrendously violent past…and has only served to move the much-needed political solution further from reach,” High Commissioner Zeid told the Human Rights Council Special Session on Burundi*.“The time for piecemeal responses and fiddling around the edges is over.