Gunmen in police uniform kill five in Burundi

 Gunmen wearing police uniform launched a series of attacks in Burundi overnight that killed five people, witnesses and officials said Wednesday, amid concern about escalating unrest.

   The militants attacked a security post in the capital Bujumbura just before midnight Tuesday, setting off a 30-minute gun battle in  which a policeman and one of the attackers were killed, an administration official said.

   In the early hours of Wednesday, eight “armed bandits in police uniform” ambushed a minibus in the northwestern province of Cibitoke and forced the passengers out, provincial governor Anselme  Nsabimana told reporters.

   “They robbed all the passengers, made them take off their clothes and then they made them lie on the ground before spraying them with petrol and setting them on fire,” he said.

   One man was burned alive, two others seriously hurt and a fourth  killed as he tried to flee, Nsabimana said.

   He described the attack at Buganda, 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of the capital Bujumbura, as “an act of cruelty aimed at terrorising the people”.

   The third attack was in the eastern province of Ruyigi where armed men in police uniform went to the home of the chief of the Kinama area and killed him, said Gisuru commune administrator Egide  Ndikuriyo.

   “They made him leave the house and executed him in cold blood before going without stealing anything,” he said.

   The chief, Jean Ruzoviyo, appeared to have been killed because he belonged to the ruling CNDD-FDD party, he said.

   Police regularly come under attack in Burundi, with officials blaming the violence on armed bandits but the public saying they are part of a nascent rebellion.

   Authorities also accuse the ex-rebel National Forces of Liberation of being involved in violence.

   Opposition figures have meanwhile gone undercover or fled the country after President Pierre Nkurunziza won an election last year. The opposition also claims hundreds of its members have been arrested and some killed.

   Escalating violence has raised fears of a resumption of all-out conflict in Burundi after a civil war which left nearly 300,000 dead between 1993 and 2006.