Burundi president claims Rwanda plans to incite war in his country

The president of Burundi has claimed that neighbouring Rwanda is planning to foment a conflict in his country, warning that it is backing a rebel group in an effort to destabilise its neighbour, citing "credible intelligence".

In an interview with the BBC, President Évariste Ndayishimiye claimed that Rwanda's plan resembled what is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a long-established paramilitary rebel group, M23, has swept through key parts of the country in an effort to seize control.

The group is widely thought to be supported by Rwanda, which denies taking any direct role in the conflict.

In his interview, Ndayishimiye claimed that the Rwandan government intended to first trigger instability and then claim it had started without external involvement.

"They would say it's an internal problem when it's Rwanda (who is) the problem," he said of the government led by his counterpart, President Paul Kagame. "We know that he has a plan to attack Burundi. Burundians will not accept to be killed as Congolese are being killed. Burundian people are fighters."

Ndayishimiye also accused Rwanda of fomenting a failed coup in Burundi in 2015, but said he had no intention of going to war.

"We don't have any plans to attack Rwanda," he said. "We want to resolve that problem by dialogue.

"We are calling on our neighbours to respect the peace agreements we have made. There is no need for us to go to war. We want dialogue, but we will not sit idle if we are attacked. We don't have anything to ask (of) Rwanda, but they refuse because they have a bad plan — they wanted to do what they're doing in the DRC."

Ndayishimiye has not provided any evidence for his claims. Rwanda has rejected Ndayishimiye's words as "surprising" and said there was no plan to spark conflict in Burundi.

The government in Kigali has also denied links to rebel groups in Burundi and insists the two countries are cooperating to secure their border.

A crisis deepens

Meanwhile, Burundi is seeing its largest influx of refugees in decades as tens of thousands of people flee the fighting in the eastern area of DRC.

According to the UN World Food Program (WFP), as Congolese government troops fight Rwanda-backed rebels who now hold two major cities, the number of registered refugees who need food assistance has doubled since January and now stands at 120,000.

The decades-long conflict in eastern DRC escalated in January when the M23 rebel group seized the strategic city of Goma. The following month the group took the city of Bukavu, which lies less than 30 miles from the Burundi border.

The presidents of DRC and Rwanda met last week in Qatar for their first direct talks since the cities were seized.

M23 is one of about 100 armed groups vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich region. The conflict has created one of the world’s largest and longest-running humanitarian crises, displacing more than 7 million people displaced over the years.

Many of those displaced to neighbouring countries including Burundi have escaped lethal violence only to face serious food insecurity. WFP warned yesterday that its funds for operations in Burundi are “stretched to the limit” and likely will be exhausted in June. It said it might have to "suspend food assistance entirely” from July or earlier.