Gitega : a person kidnapped and tortured by a local administration officer in complicity with Imbonerakure

Asman Rwasa, 32 years old, was kidnapped and then tortured by the Yoba neighborhood chief in Gitega, the political capital of Burundi, with the complicity of certain Imbonerakure (members of the youth league of the ruling party, CNDD-FDD). The incident took place on June 22. An administration source indicates that the neighborhood chief and four Imbonerakure were arrested on June 27 for investigative reasons. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

According to witnesses, it was around 8 p.m. when Asman Rwasa was kidnapped by Jimmy Kwizera, Yoba neighborhood chief.

“He was taken to a large pit at Magarama airfield, a place known as ‘Kwidodero or beating place’. He was badly beaten up by Imbonerakure,” say neighbors of the victim.

Rwasa testifies to having been beaten up for three and a half hours by these Imbonerakure.

Another source indicates that he was accused of possessing a weapon. The police and Imbonerakure went to search his house but found nothing.

“The police and the Imbonerakure did not find anything compromising at his house,” our sources say.

Asman Rwasa accuses the Imbonerakure of having taken away an amount of more than 1,700,000 Burundi francs as well as mobile phones during the search.

His wife, Nicerate Nkwirikiye, said she had to take her husband, Asman Rwasa, to a local health facility for intensive care “because he was in critical condition and losing a lot of blood, with injuries to his level of his buttocks,” she explains.

The 32-year-old from the province of Muyinga in the north-east demands that perpetrators of these acts be judged for their crime.

On June 27, 2024, neighborhood chief Yoba Jimmy Kwizera and four Imbonerakure were apprehended and then taken into custody. SOS Médias Burundi has learned that the administration officer is detained in Gitega central prison. Other members of the CNDD-FDD youth league have fled and are still wanted by the police.

The Gitega prosecutor went to pick up the victim from his home last week to go see “this slaughterhouse called Kwidodero”. He said it was the first time he had heard of this place. And on Friday July 5, a representative of the CNIDH (National Independent Human Rights Commission) also went to see Asman Rwasa to assess his state of health and the abuse he had suffered.

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Asman Rwasa sur le lit d’hôpital, DR