The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has said official Burundi forces are using gang rape, torture and other forms of violence against dissidents and suspected critics of the government. The UN pointed to a rising number of reports of torture and enforced disappearances of ethnic Tutsis perpetrated by the Burundi government, which is led by the Hutu ethnic group. Government forces are also accused of mass sexual assault against Tutsi women, with the New York Times reporting that one Tutsi woman said she was raped as a “price for her Tutsi ethnicity.” The UN Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council both plan to send delegations to Burundi to investigate the violence.
Compiled from: Cumming-Bruce, Nick, Burundi’s Forces Are Engaging in Gang Rape, UN Official Says, The New York Times (January 15, 2016).