A protester has been shot dead and two others injured during a protest rally in the southern part of Burundi, amid simmering anger in the Southeast African nation over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s bid for a third term in power. 

Local residents and witnesses said the death occurred after local security forces opened fire on a group of around a hundred demonstrators in Muyange town in Bururi Province on Monday.

The town is located around 60 kilometers (38 miles) southeast of the capital, Bujumbura.

Unrest was also reported in Matana, further south in the same troubled province, as fresh protests resumed across the country on Monday.

The government has deployed a large number of security forces in and around several tense neighborhoods of the capital in order to prevent rallies and escalation of violence.

Riot police sealed off roads and prevented any large-scale demonstrations in most districts across Bujumbura.

However, in Cibitoke, a district of the capital that has been the hotbed of protests, several hundred youths set up barricades and chanted anti-government slogans.

They were shouting slogans against the recent killing of the leader of a small opposition party, Zedi Feruzi, along with a bodyguard in the capital.

"We started blocking the road at 4am because of the assassination," media outlets quoted a 32-year-old teacher and protester in Cibitoke as saying.

On Friday, at least three people lost their lives and a number of others were wounded after unknown assailants threw two grenades into a market in Bujumbura,

More than 20 people have been killed since protest rallies began in late April against Nkurunziza’s third term bid.

On Thursday, Burundi’s newly-appointed Defense Minister Emmanuel Ntahonvukiye urged the army to close ranks following a failed coup attempt last week by a senior general amid persisting efforts by government forces to contain weeks of violent anti-government rallies.

Burundi, a small nation in Africa’s Great Lakes region, emerged in 2005 from a brutal 12-year civil war. In October 1993, Melchior Ndadaye, the first democratically-elected president of Burundi, who came from the Hutu ethnic group, was assassinated after only 100 days in office. The assassination triggered deadly ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis, another ethnic group in Burundi.

Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader from the majority Hutu tribe, has been Burundi’s president for two legal five-year terms. His intention to seek a third term is viewed by the opponents as a clear violation of the constitution and the Arusha Agreements, which marked an end to the civil war. The two documents limit the president’s stay in office to two five-year terms.

The incumbent president, however, has rejected claims that he is violating the constitution by seeking to remain in power, arguing that he can still run for president as his rise to power after the civil war did not come through direct votes.

JR/KA/HMV