The Burundian Human Rights activist Pierre Claver Mbonimpa will be treated in Belgium

The Burundian Human Rights activist Pierre Claver Mbonimpa will be treated in Belgium

The Burundian Human Rights activist Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, who was seriously injured during an assassination attempt at the beginning of the week, will arrive in Belgium on Sunday evening. He is coming to be treated here. This was confirmed by SOS Media Burundi when they spoke to the Belga agency. The information was also confirmed by another Burundian Human Rights activist, Pacifique Nininahazwe. “He is stable”, Mr Nininahazwe said. Belgium offered to bring Mr Mbonimpa onto its territory to be treated after the attack.

Mr Mbonimpa’s family decided to get him out their country, which has been rocked by violence. They decided on Kenya or a European country. Belgium was therefore taken up on its offer to bring Mr Mbonimpa here for treatment.

The Burundi justice department authorised Mr Mbonimpa to seek treatment abroad, despite a case against him for threatening National Security being opened in 2014. Mr Mbonimpa is a respected Human Rights figure in Burundi. He was shot in the face by three men on motorbikes while going home on Monday evening. The attack happened in Bujumbura. The Justice Department wants to arrest him for saying that the Imbonerakure – members of the ruling party CNDD-FDD’s youth division – were receiving paramilitary training in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

He was released on parole at the end of September 2014, after spending 4 and a half months in preventative detention. He was banned from leaving the country.  

(Source: Belga)


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