Poor relations between Rwanda and Burundi seem to be escalating by the day, with Burundi police yesterday stopping many private buses from crossing the border into its eastern neighbor, it accuses of providing support to rebels trying to topple President Pierre Nkurunziza’s government.
Burundi National Police spokesperson Pierre Nkurikiye said hisw country was putting practice a government’s measure forbidding the export of food crops to neighbouring countries, which came into force a week ago.
“Those companies had repeatedly violated the measure by transporting food across Rwanda from Burundi,” said Nkurikiye. However, he did not exclude the possibility of security reasons being behind the decision. He also acknowledged that the ban applied only to transport crossing into Rwanda.
“The armed groups which destabilize Burundi come from Rwanda by those companies,” claimed Nkurikiye.
And yesterday buses of transport companies like Yahoo Car, Volcano and Horizon left the capital Bujumbura on Thursday morning, but were stopped for several hours by police at the border.
The passengers, mostly from Burundi and Rwanda, had to get out of the buses and walk across the border with their luggage to take other buses on the Rwanda side of the border, said a spokesperson for Yahoo Car.
Burundi has been plagued by instability and low-level violence since Nkurunziza announced in April 2015 that he was running for a third term as president despite the two-term limit in the constitution.
A week ago, Burundi’s Second Vice President Joseph Butore visited Cibitoke province, bordering Rwanda. He instructed police and customs officials not to allow exports of Burundian food into Rwanda.
“We cannot sell to Rwanda what we produce ourselves because that country wants to fight against us,” said Butore.
Recently, Burundi withdrew its delegation that was in Rwanda to attend the 21st African Union Summit of the Heads of State, an indicator of the deteriorating relations between the two East African countries.
