Burundi’s authorities have arrested three generals for their role in this week attempted coup but the leader of the bid to overthrow President Pierre Nkurunziza was “still on the run,” a presidential spokesman said on Friday.
After Thursday’s heavy fighting for control of the state radio headquarters and frequent gunfire in the capital, the streets of Bujumbura were quiet on Friday morning, Reuters reports.
Nkurunziza, who had been in Tanzania when Major Gen. Godefroid Niyombare said on Wednesday he was leading a bid to overthrow him, came back to Burundi on Thursday, another signal that the government had regained control of the capital.
The president was due to address the nation “in the coming hours,” presidential spokesman Gervais Abayeho told Reuters.
Nkurunziza has returned to face alarming splits in the army and a nation where thousands of protesters in Bujumbura had rallied against his bid for a third term in office. The protesters had celebrated on the streets when the coup was declared.
The unrest has plunged Burundi into its deepest crisis since an ethnically fuelled civil war ended in 2005.
The presidential spokesman said one police general and two army generals were arrested “for involvement in the aborted coup,” adding that one of them was former Defence Minister, Cyrille Ndayirukiye.
But coup leader Niyombare, who was fired from a briefly held post of intelligence chief by Nkurunziza in February, was not one of those held, he stated.