Burundi : death of the Minister of Media and Communication Gabby Bugaga in troubled circumstances

SOS Médias Burundi

Bujumbura, April 16, 2026 – In Burundi, Gabby Bugaga, Minister of Media and Communication and former journalist, died in troubled circumstances on the night of April 15-16. Some sources mention a rollover accident. His vehicle was found Thursday morning in Rubirizi, on the outskirts of Bujumbura, the commercial capital where United Nations agencies and the central administration are concentrated, in a palm plantation. Appointed in August 2025 by President Evariste Ndayishimiye, he was a well-known figure in the Burundian media landscape.

According to information gathered on the spot, the body of the minister was discovered early in the morning in a palm plantation located in Kivoga, on the Bujumbura-Bubanza road, not far from the Maranatha Secondary School in Kivoga.

He was aboard his vehicle, a 4×4 jeep, also immobilized in a palm plantation. Initial observations describe a judiciously unusual scene : the minister’s head was resting on the steering wheel, the left door was open and his left leg was extended outside the vehicle.

Initial official information suggests a traffic accident. Government spokesman Jerome Niyonzima told Burundi’s National Radio Television that Minister Bugaga had died in a car accident, without, however, evoking, at this stage, the opening of a detailed judicial investigation.

However, several elements fuel inquiries, notably the absence of his close guard at the time of the drama, a situation deemed difficult to understand given the rank of the deceased.

An ambulance from Bujumbura intervened around 9 am to evacuate the body, still found in a palm plantation.

While the official version privileges the accident, sources close to the case contacted by SOS Médias Burundi raise the possibility of a masked criminal act.

According to these sources, the minister had left a sports site in the evening and was to meet acquaintances in a bar. He would have been waited in vain by the latter, who claim to have contacted him shortly after 8 pm.

These same sources believe that the scene could have been reconstituted to simulate a road accident after a possible murder, the vehicle having been found in a palm plantation. No independent confirmation could however be obtained at this stage.

The death of Gabby Bugaga, aged less than 50 years according to several relatives, has aroused a vivid emotion in Burundi as well as within the diaspora. Images from the scene circulated on social media after the vehicle was discovered by residents in a palm grove, in hopes of identifying the victim.

Several voices evoke a disappearance deemed premature and shrouded in mystery.

In a statement issued from exile, the Iteka League, a Burundian human rights organization, said it was concerned about this new death in unclear circumstances.

In its alert No. 009/2026, it denounces what it describes as the “operational mode of extrajudicial executions” and claims to have documented 2,248 cases of lifeless bodies found in five years and nine months, often without thorough judicial investigations.

The Iteka League points out that even highly secure personalities can be found dead in conditions judged suspicious, prior to any judicial investigation.

It recommends the opening of an independent investigation so that the national and international community is informed of the true causes of Gabby Bugaga’s death.

Finally, the Iteka League extends its condolences to the family of the deceased in particular, as well as to the Government of Burundi.