A/HRC/45/32 2. Security incidents 21. Burundi has had several serious security incidents. On 22 October 2019, an armed clash took place in Bubanza Province between the Burundi defence and security forces and an armed group. The Red Tabara opposition group claimed responsibility. On 16 November 2019, in Cibitoke Province, a Burundian army position was attacked by a group of heavily armed individuals. The Government of Burundi accused Rwanda of being responsible for the attack, and Rwanda formally denied the accusation. Between 19 and 23 February 2020, in Bujumbura Province, there were reports of an armed group and several exchanges of gunfire with law enforcement agencies. The official account of this incident reported 22 armed criminals and 2 police officers killed and 6 of the assailants captured. However, several of the armed men were shot dead after being captured by Imbonerakure-backed security forces. 3. Transitional justice 22. On 14 January 2020, the president of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission presented the progress report for 2019. The Commission identified 142,505 Burundians killed or missing from the time of independence in 1962 until the end of the civil war in December 2008. The Commission reportedly has information on the conditions in which the victims were killed or reported missing, and on the perpetrators. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission also located thousands of mass graves, in all provinces. Since the beginning of 2020, it has unearthed more sites and has exhumed thousands of human remains. The victims’ clothing and the material used to kill them − mainly in 1972, when the victims were principally Hutus − will be kept in a museum.10 4. Health situation 23. Burundi has faced a cholera epidemic since June 2019, an epidemic-scale “upsurge” of malaria cases since January 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic since March 2020, and it has had to prepare for a possible outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has been circulating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 2018. 24. For months, the Government of Burundi denied that there was actually a serious health situation in the country, for example refusing to qualify the malaria “upsurge” as an epidemic or to acknowledge the existence of the COVID-19 outbreak, since, according to former President Nkurunziza, Burundi was protected from it “by the grace of God”. On 12 May 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the Government declared four World Health Organization officials persona non grata, including the Organization’s representative in the country. Burundi was one of the only countries with positive cases of COVID-19 that did not adopt any restrictions on gatherings, which, on the contrary, increased during the election campaign. According to the country’s official data, as of 20 July 2020, out of a total of 9,461 tests carried out, 328 cases of COVID-19 had been detected, with only 1 death reported. Such figures have regularly been criticized for being excessively low. 25. Since the death of President Nkurunziza on 8 June 2020, the authorities have stressed the need to take barrier measures and have encouraged people with symptoms to visit health centres, although information about the true scale of the pandemic continues to be lacking. In his speech of 30 June 2020, President Ndayishimiye said that the COVID-19 pandemic was “the greatest enemy” of the Burundian people. 5. Humanitarian situation 26. As at 30 June 2020, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 333,703 Burundians were still refugees in bordering countries, 6,423 had been repatriated from the United Republic of Tanzania since 1 January 2020 and 3,247 new arrivals had been officially registered in neighbouring countries. 27. In 2020, according to the figures agreed by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Government of Burundi, 1.7 million persons are in need of 10 6 See www.ppbdi.com/index.php/ubum/imibano/9-actualite/15519-parlement-presentation-du-rapportannuel-des-activites-de-la-commission-verite-et-reconciliation. GE.20-10689