This archive report was first published on 12 June 2020.
On Friday, June 12, 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered that the Kenyan flag and the East African Community flag be flown at half-mast from Saturday, June 13, to honour Burundi President Pierre Nkurunziza, who died on Tuesday, June 9, 2020, at the age of 55.
The flags will be flown at half-mast at all public buildings, public grounds, and throughout the entire country, as well as at all of Kenya's diplomatic missions abroad.
President Kenyatta mourned President Nkurunziza, saying, "May the late President Pierre Nkurunziza rest in eternal peace."
According to a statement issued by Burundi Government Spokesman Prosper Ntahorwamiye, President Nkurunziza attended a volleyball match on Saturday afternoon and was taken to hospital in Eastern Burundi that evening after falling ill.
He suffered a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital in Karusi Province, where his health deteriorated on Monday morning and he got a cardiac arrest.
President Nkurunziza was a teacher and assistant lecturer at the University of Burundi before joining politics. He emerged as the leader of the Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD) following the civil war of 1993.
With the 2003 peace deal, he was named Minister of Interior before Parliament elected him President in August 2005.
He was due to step down in August 2020, after 15 years in power, but his death comes barely three weeks after the national elections which his party candidate Evariste Ndayishimiye won with 68.72 per cent of the vote.
