Burundi : former Hutu rebel leader Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye arrested in a fuel trafficking case

SOS Médias Burundi

Bujumbura, August 16, 2025 – Former Hutu rebel leader Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, exiled for challenging Pierre Nkurunziza’s third term and returning to the country in 2021, was imprisoned Thursday in Mpimba. He is accused of fuel trafficking in Burundi paralyzed for 56 months by an unprecedented fuel shortage.

Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye, the former Hutu rebel leader who fled Burundi in 2015 after criticizing the late President Pierre Nkurunziza’s third term, and founder of a dissident wing of the CNDD-FDD, the former Hutu rebel group that has ruled Burundi since 2005 thanks to the August 2000 Arusha peace agreement in Tanzania, has been a resident of Bujumbura’s central prison, known as Mpimba, since Thursday evening.

According to sources familiar with the case, he is prosecuted in connection with the illegal sale of fuel. No official statement has been made regarding this case. Although there are reportedly other people with whom he shares the same case, he was taken to Mpimba alone. Our sources confirm that he did not pass through any other cell before his transfer to the prison in the commercial capital of the small east African nation.

Burundi has been facing a fuel crisis that has persisted for 56 months, accompanied by several other shortages. For over a year, several equipment owners and traders have been turning to the DRC or Tanzania to find fuel. Mr. Ndayikengurukiye sold fuel from the Congo, according to the prosecution. Individuals arrested for such allegations are accused of undermining the national economy or sabotage.

Originally from the former province of Bururi (currently incorporated into Burunga), Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye is a former officer in the Burundian army. Following the 1993 assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu elected head of state in Burundi, he joined the armed rebellion. He took over as leader of the CNDD-FDD in 1998 before being ousted two years later. He then founded a dissident wing of the CNDD-FDD, the former Hutu rebellion that had been in power in Burundi since 2005 thanks to the August 2000 peace agreement in Arusha, Tanzania, before going into exile.

After openly opposing Pierre Nkurunziza’s third term in 2015, he fled Burundi again. In 2021, convinced by the assurances of President Évariste Ndayishimiye, known as Neva, he returned to the country. His current arrest marks a new turning point in the tumultuous career of this former rebel leader turned into a political opponent.