Portal:Burundi

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Flag of Burundi
Coat of Arms of Burundi
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Burundi (IPA: [buˈɾundi]), officially the Republic of Burundi, is a small landlocked country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west. Its size is just under 28,000 km² with an estimated population of almost 8,700,000. Its capital is Bujumbura. Although the country is landlocked, much of the southwestern border is adjacent to Lake Tanganyika.

The Twa, Tutsi, and Hutu peoples have occupied Burundi since the country's formation five centuries ago. Burundi was ruled as a kingdom by the Tutsi for over two hundred years. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Germany and Belgium occupied the region, and Burundi and Rwanda became a European colony known as Ruanda-Urundi.

Political unrest occurred throughout the region because of social differences between the Tutsi and Hutu, provoking civil war in Burundi throughout the middle twentieth century. Presently, Burundi is governed as a presidential representative democratic republic. Sixty-two percent of Burundians are Roman Catholic, eight to ten percent are Muslims and the rest follow indigenous beliefs and other Christian denominations.

Burundi is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. It has the lowest per capita GDP of any nation in the world. Burundi has a low gross domestic product largely due to civil wars, corruption, poor access to education, and the effects of HIV/AIDS. Burundi is densely populated, with substantial emigration. Cobalt and copper are among Burundi's natural resources. Some of Burundi's main exports include coffee and sugar.

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Lake tanganyika.jpg

Lake Tanganyika is an African Great Lake (3° 20' to 8° 48' South and from 29° 5' to 31° 15' East). It is estimated to be the second or third largest freshwater lake in the world by volume, and the second deepest, after Lake Baikal in Siberia. The lake is divided between four countries – Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Tanzania and Zambia, with the DRC (45%) and Tanzania (41%) possessing the majority of the lake. The water flows into the Congo River system and ultimately into the Atlantic Ocean. (Read more...)

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Credit: Hubert Schonberg

A view of Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi.

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edit Sylvie Kinigi (born 1953) was Prime Minister of Burundi from 10 July 1993 to 7 February 1994, the first and to date only woman to hold the position.

Kinigi was born in 1953, and is a member of the Tutsi ethnic group. Her husband, with whom she had five children, was a member of the Hutu ethnic group. Kinigi graduated from Burundi University, having studied economic management, and worked in the Burundi civil service. She eventually became a senior advisor in the Prime Minister's office, focusing on economic policy.

When Melchior Ndadaye was elected President of Burundi in 1993, he appointed Kinigi as his Prime Minister. This was part of an effort to build unity between Burundi's two ethnic groups — Ndadaye was a Hutu, and wished to decrease Tutsi hostility to his administration by appointing a Tutsi as Prime Minister. Kinigi stated that reconciliation between the two ethnic groups would be her highest priority.

(Read more...)

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