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Ex Burundi EAC minister assassinated

Security personnel block the area close to where the body of Col. (Rtd) Lucien Rufyiri lies on May 25, 2015 in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura after he was gunned down by unidentified gunmen as he arrived at his residence. The Tutsi colonel who has been retired for several years was killed outside his home in a rebellious district of Bujumbura "by armed criminals", according to a source within the family. "Colonel Lucien Rufyiri has been murdered this morning in front of his house and a son who was with him was injured," he told AFP a family member, who requested anonymity. / AFP PHOTO / ONESPHORE NIBIGIRA
Security personnel block the area close to where the body of a Col. (Rtd) Lucien Rufyiri was gunned down by unidentified gunmen as he arrived at his residence.  Now former EAC minister Mossi has also been assasinated. AFP PHOTO / ONESPHORE NIBIGIRA

Former Burundian government minister and spokeswoman Hafsa Mossi was shot dead in the capital Bujumbura on Wednesday, police said.

“Hon. Mossi assassinated 10.30 in Gihosha”, in the east of Bujumbura by, “two criminals in a vehicle,” police spokesman Pierre Nkurikiye said on Twitter.

Mossi was Burundi’s information minister and government spokeswoman between 2005-2007, and was, at the time of her death, a member of the East African Legislative Assembly, a regional parliament.

Mossi, a former journalist in her 50s, was a member of President Pierre Nkurunziza’s ruling CNDD-FDD party.

Nkurunziza’s controversial but ultimately successful bid for a third term last year triggered a deadly crisis that has killed more than 500 people and driven around 270,000 to leave the country.

Several senior military officers close to the president have been assassinated since the start of the crisis in April 2015, but Mossi, who was not regarded as a party hardliner, is the first senior politician to be killed.

 

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