Life has become unbearable”: Burundian widows face hardship and injustice

SOS Médias Burundi

Bujumbura, June 24, 2025 — On this International Widows’ Day, many Burundian women speak out about their harsh reality: poverty, abandonment, family injustices, and soaring prices have made their daily lives unbearable. They say they have been forgotten by the authorities and left without hope.

A daily struggle for survival

Clotilde Macumi, a resident of the Mirango neighborhood in the northern part of Burundi’s economic capital, Bujumbura, has been a widow for five years. Since her husband’s death, her children have been forced to drop out of school. She now works as a construction assistant, a difficult job that no longer allows her to provide for her family.

“Today, it’s hard to find enough food, and what’s available is of poor quality. The prices of basic necessities have skyrocketed alarmingly,” she laments.

Rejection and family disputes

Anne Marie Kaneza, a young widow in her thirties, says that beyond the pain of her loss, she faces pressure and mistreatment from her in-laws.

“Instead of supporting me, my in-laws are dragging me to court to claim a share of the land my husband left behind. Before his death, I never had these kinds of problems. Now I have to take care of my young children all by myself,” she confides.

A deep sense of abandonment

Calinie Minani, a retired widow, says she feels completely abandoned.

“With the current government, Burundians, especially vulnerable widows like us, are like orphans, without support or protection. I still have children under the age of twenty who have many needs, but I see no way to meet them,” she says with despair.

Living in fear, without prospects

Another widow, who lives in the Rubirizi area on the outskirts of Bujumbura, expresses deep anxiety about her children’s future.

“The government doesn’t care about us—honestly, it seems like they don’t care about anyone. It’s as if Burundians are in a boat whose captain has let go of the wheel. My husband was killed in 2016, and my children still live in fear. We have no future. Our only hope has collapsed. Even in my community, everyone says the same thing: we are unhappy. Prices for everything have skyrocketed. We will die of hunger. As widows in this situation, we are miserable and have no help at all.”

These widows say that this International Widows’ Day finds them trapped in extreme poverty, forgotten, and abandoned.