Hundreds March In Burundi Against President's Bid For Third Term

Demonstrators protest against President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third term in power in Burundi's capital Bujumbura on April 27, 2015 ©Landry Nshimiye (AFP)

Hundreds of people marched in the outskirts of Burundi's capital on Tuesday in a third day of protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term, a move critics say violates the constitution and a key peace deal.

Protesters in Burundi clashed with police for a third day Tuesday in fresh demonstrations against the president's bid to cling to power for a third term, witnesses said.

At least five people have died since clashes broke out Sunday after the ruling CNDD-FDD party, which has been accused of intimidating opponents, designated President Pierre Nkurunziza its candidate in the June 26 presidential election.

"It will continue," said Jonathan, a 26-year old unemployed protester, saying that the problem is not that Nkurunziza had been in power for too long but that "he goes against the law."

Crowds started gathering early in the morning, chanting: "We accepted the first term for Nkurunziza, we have also accepted the second one, but we will never accept the third one."

Protesters run past a Burundian police riot vehicle in Musaga, on the ourskirts of Bujumbura, on April 27, 2015 ©Simon Maina (AFP)

Nkurunziza's announcement on Saturday that he would run in the June 26 elections has triggered the worst political crisis in the east African country since it emerged from civil war a decade ago.

Activists say he is breaking two-term limits set out in constitution and the Arusha peace agreement that ended the war and has been credited with containing Burundi's ethnic rifts.

The president's supporters say his first term does not count as he was picked by lawmakers, not elected. Nkurunziza's spokesman has called the protests an "insurrection".

The prospect of a fresh build-up of ethnic strife will sound alarm bells across a region still scarred by the 1994 genocide in Burundi's neighbour Rwanda, where more than 800,000 people were killed, most of them Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Authorities say more than 20,000 people have fled from Burundi to Rwanda, and thousands more over the border to the Democratic Republic of Congo.