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Burundi's first democratically elected president was assassinated in October 1993 after only 100 days in office, triggering widespread ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi factions. More than 200,000 Burundians perished during the conflict that spanned almost a dozen years. Hundreds of thousands of Burundians were internally displaced or became refugees in neighboring countries.
An internationally brokered power-sharing agreement between the Tutsi-dominated government and the Hutu rebels in 2003 paved the way for a transition process that led to an integrated defense force, established a new constitution in 2005, and elected a majority Hutu government in 2005. The government of President Pierre Nkurunziza, who was reelected in 2010, continues to face many political and economic challenges.
Population: 10,395,931
Nationality: noun: Burundian(s) adjective: Burundian
Ethnic groups: Hutu (Bantu) 85%, Tutsi (Hamitic) 14%, Twa (Pygmy) 1%, Europeans 3,000, South Asians 2,000
Languages: Kirundi 29.7% (official), Kirundi and other language 9.1%, French (official) and French and other language 0.3%, Swahili and Swahili and other language 0.2% (along Lake Tanganyika and in the Bujumbura area), English and English and other language 0.06%, more than 2 languages 3.7%, unspecified 56.9%.
Religions: Catholic 62.1%, Protestant 23.9% (includes Adventist 2.3% and other Protestant 21.6%), Muslim 2.5%, other 3.6%, unspecified 7.9%.
GDP: $ 2 676 000 000.00 (2013)
National Defense Forces (Forces de Defense Nationale, FDN): Army (includes maritime wing, Air Wing), National Gendarmerie.
Burundi and Rwanda dispute two sq km (0.8 sq mi) of Sabanerwa, a farmed area in the Rukurazi Valley where the Akanyaru/Kanyaru River shifted its course southward after heavy rains in 1965; cross-border conflicts persist among Tutsi, Hutu, other ethnic groups, associated political rebels, armed gangs, and various government forces in the Great Lakes region.
Burundi is a source country for children and possibly women subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking; business people recruit Burundian girls for prostitution domestically, as well as in Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, and the Middle East, and recruit boys and girls for forced labor in Burundi and Tanzania; children and young adults are coerced into forced labor in farming, mining, construction, or informal commerce; some family members, friends, and neighbors are complicit in exploiting children, luring them in with offers of educational or job opportunities.
78,900 (the majority are ethnic Tutsi displaced by inter-communal violence that broke out after the 1993 coup and fighting between government forces and rebel groups; no new displacements since 2008 when the last rebel group laid down its arms).
Capital: Bujumbura
Location: Central Africa, east of Democratic Republic of the Congo. Landlocked; straddles crest of the Nile-Congo watershed; the Kagera, which drains into Lake Victoria, is the most remote headstream of the White Nile.
Geographic coordinates:
3 30 S, 30 00 E.
Area:
total: 27,830 sq km
land: 25,680 sq km
water: 2,150 sq km.
Land boundaries:
total: 1,140 km
border countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo 236 km, Rwanda 315 km, Tanzania 589 km.
Coastline: 0 km (landlocked).
Natural resources: nickel, uranium, rare earth oxides, peat, cobalt, copper, platinum, vanadium, arable land, hydropower, niobium, tantalum, gold, tin, tungsten, kaolin, limestone.
