As darkness falls, vigilantes armed with automatic rifles emerge to patrol the streets of Bujumbura, a city plagued by killings and violence as Burundi's crisis deepens. The country is still awash with arms after a 12-year civil war.
For months, the trill of cicadas in the tropical night has been interrupted by sporadic gunfire and explosions across the capital, centre of the turmoil sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third term in office.
. Bujumbura, BURUNDI. Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
Thousands initially protested against the president and opposed his re-election in a disputed July vote. Now some have formed vigilante units, coming out at night in tracksuits and jeans, clutching AK-47 rifles as they patrol.
"If the police shoot at us, then, yes, we will fight back," the leader of one group, giving his name only as Fred, told this Reuters photographer, who followed his unit last week. "All hotspot neighbourhoods are protecting themselves in this manner."
. Bujumbura, BURUNDI. Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
Residents and vigilantes in other districts confirmed this.
It is the first time a foreign journalist has been allowed to follow such a group, securing images from Bujumbura that will stoke international worries about a new conflict erupting in a nation where an ethnically charged civil war ended just a decade ago after 300,000 people were killed.
. Bujumbura, BURUNDI. Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
The region remains haunted by the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, in which 800,000 people, mostly members of the Tutsi minority and moderates among majority Hutus, were massacred.
Western powers say it must not be repeated in Burundi, which has the same ethnic mix. More than 200 people have been killed in violence since April, although rivalries have tended to run along political rather than ethnic lines so far.
. Bujumbura, BURUNDI. Reuters/Goran Tomasevic
The emergence of organised armed groups highlights disintegrating security in the capital and shows a marked change from the impromptu barricades of stones and tree trunks set up to bar access into residential districts early in the crisis.
World powers and regional states fear unrest in Burundi could escalate if left unchecked. The Security Council has asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to prepare a report by the end of this month outlining options for boosting the U.N. presence.
