Bujumbura, BURUNDI
Burundi's newly-elected president Evariste Ndayishimiye (pictured) will
be sworn in on Thursday, the foreign ministry announced, in a ceremony
fast-tracked by the sudden death of the incumbent, Pierre Nkurunziza.
Nkurunziza died on June 8 aged 55, of what
authorities said was heart failure.
His death
came less than two weeks after his wife had been flown to a Nairobi hospital
for treatment for coronavirus, according to a medical document seen by AFP.
The
foreign ministry invited diplomats and foreign organisations to "take part
in the inauguration ceremony" in the capital Gitega, in a letter sent out
on Monday.
Ndayishimiye,
52, a former army general and Hutu rebel like his predecessor, had been handpicked
by the powerful ruling CNDD-FDD to run in a May 20 presidential election.
He won
the vote with 68.7 percent, and an opposition bid to have the results
overturned due to alleged fraud was overturned just days before Nkurunziza's
death.
Normally,
following the death of a president, the speaker of Burundi's parliament would
step in as head of state.
But as
the country already had a president-elect, the constitutional court ruled last
week he should be sworn in immediately, instead of in August as planned.
Nkurunziza,
a devout evangelical who believed he was chosen by God to lead Burundi, leaves
behind a deeply isolated country in political and economic turmoil after his
divisive 15-year rule.
His 2015
run for a third term in office sparked protests and a failed coup, with
violence leaving at least 1,200 dead while some 400,000 fled the country.
United
Nations human rights investigators have said the period since 2015 has been
marked by likely crimes against humanity committed by state forces, citing
extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests, disappearances, torture and sexual
violence.
Nkurunziza's
decision not to run in the May 20 election stunned many, as it came after the
constitution was changed to allow him to do so.
The
government has yet to announce a date for Nkurunziza's funeral.
Suspicions
are high that the president had contracted the new coronavirus, after months of
assuring Burundi it was being protected by God from the pandemic, and taking
few measures to combat it.
Officially
the country has recorded only 104 cases and one death.
Nkurunziza's
wife Denise Bucumi was hospitalised at the end of May with the virus. A medical
document seen by AFP said she had tested positive for the virus and suffered
"respiratory distress".
A medical
source at the Karusi hospital where Nkurunziza died, told AFP he had also been
in "respiratory distress" before his death.
A medical
source at the Kamenge university hospital in Bujumbura told AFP that the head
of the institute of public health "came to requisition our hospital's only
ventilator" last Monday.
Both were
flown to the hospital in Karusi, but it was "too late, president
Nkurunziza was already dead," a medical source in Karusi said.
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