He held the post controversially for three terms, facing bloody opposition, sparking significant public unrest in 2015.

Pierre Nkurunziza was born on 18 December 1964 in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, shortly after the country's independence from Belgian rule in 1962.

He was one of six children born into a family from Buye in Mwumba, Ngozi Province, where Nkurunziza spent his early years.

[2] Alongside his other roles, he taught at the Higher Institute for Military Cadres (Institut supérieur des cadres militaires, ISCAM) where he made important personal contacts with officers in the Burundian National Army who would subsequently become leading figures within the major rebel groups during the Civil War.

The killing sparked a wave of ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi factions and the start of the Burundian Civil War.

He spent several years in hiding in the bush and was himself sentenced to death in absentia by a government-backed court in 1998 for planting land mines.

A series of agreements in 2003 paved the way for the CNDD–FDD to enter national politics, and allowed Nkurunziza to be reunited with his wife and surviving family members.

Burundi became actively involved in the African Union and the state's outstanding public debt was cancelled in 2009 by the "Paris Club".

However, Nkurunziza was re-elected for a second term in July 2010 with a big majority but was effectively unopposed,[3] as the polls were boycotted by opposition parties.

[12] Dissent came to a head with the public announcement on 25 April 2015 that Nkurunziza would stand for a third term in the presidential elections scheduled for June that year.

This appeared to be contrary to the term limits established in the Arusha Accords and sparked widespread protests in Bujumbura and elsewhere which led to violent confrontations.

[17] Nkurunziza's third term saw the country's increasing isolation in light of international condemnation of the repression which accompanied the 2015 unrest.

[18][19] On 4 August 2015, he ordered the police to find the murderers of his ally, Lieutenant General Adolphe Nshimirimana, within ten days who was represented as the right-hand man of the president.

[21] Fearing an outbreak of genocidal violence, the African Union attempted to dispatch a peacekeeping force to Burundi in 2016 but this was blocked by Nkurunziza.

[18] Nkurunziza withdrew Burundi from the International Criminal Court in 2017 and advocated constitutional reforms which would allow longer presidential terms which were approved in a disputed referendum in May 2018.

Global outrage, with denunciations from Human Rights Watch and an international campaign on networks under the Hashtag #FreeOurGirls, forced the government, which agreed to release the three girls.