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« Burundi : the hungriest country » : now that’s a nice « compliment »!

A verdict without appeal. « Global Hunger Index 2024 » published the list « of the 20 African countries where hunger is the most severe ». And guess which came out on top. Well, you don’t need to be a genius to know that it can only be… Burundi. And if it is in Africa, we wouldn’t be wrong to think that it could be in the world. Nevertheless, congratulations to Evariste Ndayishimiye and his team for having already managed to maintain this level! (Franck Kaze)

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

Yes. By this « bravo », some will see cynicism, but I am just following the path of the logic of my little analysis that I published through the article https://www.iwacu-burundi.org/burundi-ou-es-tu/ on May 21, and which had earned the ire of the power by a warning to the Iwacu newspaper for having published it. Because it must, unfortunately, be admitted : the situation that had pushed me to this reflection remains the same, if it has not worsened in certain aspects.


By a joke, all in all logical, and it is undoubtedly what irritated Neva and his team, I had expressed the idea that in the context that was his, Burundi deserved no other fate than to be « unclassifiable ». What else to think when during the previous years, the country had been classified « last », while all the products and services were still available!

A street child about to be reintegrated into his family drinks water in a center in the commercial city of Bujumbura (SOS Médias Burundi)

Today, when everything is lacking, « last » therefore sounds like a compliment! But a compliment that tastes like an extremely bitter pill.

Ah, these « enemies of the nation » who do not disarm

Once again, Évariste Ndayishimiye and company will only see it as a new « stab in the back by the enemies of the nation ». They who never cease to proclaim at every turn that the « Eden » is none other than Burundi, with its « overabundant harvests » and « a very happy people ». But never a word to contradict the appalling statistics that establish that the rate of chronic malnutrition has exceeded 55% since 2022 (WHO, OCHA sources, etc.), that household purchasing power is shrinking like shagreen leather, that civil servants’ salaries are insignificant compared to the exponential rise in the prices of all basic necessities – if you still have to find some -, that the Burundi franc is depreciating without stopping, etc.


The government is decimating its own workforce through daily assassinations and kidnappings, subjecting the population to permanent panic fear with its Imbonerakure militia (league of youth affiliated with the ruling party, the CNDD-FDD) and its intelligence service, thus making it incapable of producing for the country’s food self-sufficiency, an atmosphere that is getting worse with the lack of fertilizers and quality seeds without mentioning the paltry budgets allocated to the production sectors.

An insoluble situation

The government has lost all support. And the EU, its main donor, which has just announced the extension of its sanctions, is still hesitant to renew its trust that it has taken away since 2016, in a chaos that annihilates the slightest chance of investment, resulting in a desert of foreign currency and products as essential as fuel, sugar or even energy, or even water.

Franck Kaze, the author of the article

The main root cause is only the bad governance established as the one and only policy by the authorities who seem to think only in terms of their bellies and pockets, without the slightest inspiration to get the people out of the abyss into which they have plunged them.


Otherwise, how can we explain that a country that has no infrastructure and is struggling to feed its population is unable to derive any benefit from the funds allocated to it by various financial institutions, including the World Bank, which in March 2023 announced that the disbursement rate for the projects it financed over the period 2019-2023 was only 21%? « Poor governance » and « incompetence of managers » were the main reasons given by the Bretton Woods institution to explain this state of affairs.


And the situation is not about to change, since the government is using the ostrich tactic by burying its head in the sand, pretending that there is no problem.

The art of diversion to mask the real problems

Playing Kinshasa’s valet, Évariste Ndayishimiye raises the specter of a war in the eyes of Burundians that is far from concerning them. And to convince himself of his fact, the head of state sends, without any qualms, soldiers of the FDNB (National Defense Force of Burundi) to be decimated by dozens, without their own people even having the right to mourn.


In the same vein, Gitega continues its rhetoric on an imaginary enemy by the name of Rwanda, weaving alliances as improbable as they are dangerous with the genocidal FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) vowing to keep the borders with the hated neighbor closed, summoning his generals to secret meetings and mobilizing Imbonerakure and reservists for a war whose contours are slow to be defined.


Too busy with this game whose baseness does not seem to bother him, far from it, Évariste Ndayishimiye does not have time to think about the misfortunes of Burundians assailed by nameless misery and, unsurprisingly, hunger, since that is our subject of the day.

From « hungriest country » to « poorest country », there is only a very, very small step, the first being only the consequence of the second. There will certainly be ‘compliments’ like that in spades, at the rate at which Ndayishimiye and his teammates are leading the country. Oh, how I would like to be wrong!

WHO* : World Health Organization

OCHA* : UN humanitarian agency

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The Buterere dump in the north of the commercial city of Bujumbura, the only solution for several families to feed themselves (SOS Médias Burundi)