Former Burundian President Rtd Colonel Jean Baptiste Bagaza is dead. He was 70.
Bagaza passed away Wednesday morning at the hospital of St. Elizabeth Brixelles, Brussels where he was receiving treatment.
This was confirmed in a presidential statement issued today morning.
The deceased served as the troubled country’s leader from 1976 to 1987.
While travelling abroad, Bagaza was deposed in a military coup d’état.
He was in 1987 replaced as president by Pierre Buyoya, and went into exile in Uganda and later went to Libya, where he lived until 1993.
A year after Bagaza’s toppling, thousands of Hutus were massacred and other fled the country.
Buyoya was in power until 1993. He became president again in 1996 following another military coup.
Since 1994, Bagaza led the Party for National Recovery (PARENA). He was a Senator for life as a former head of state