Burundi says weeks of protests against a controversial bid by President Pierre Nkurunziza for a third term in office are over, accusing reporters of being behind street demonstrations in the Central African country.

"There are no more demonstrations in Bujumbura or inside the country," Pierre Nkurikiye, deputy spokesman for Burundi’s Security Ministry and Police, said in a statement published on Thursday.

The statement added that journalists, especially international media correspondents, “organize groups of people in remote areas, away from police, and ask them to sing, to exhibit placards."

The assertion comes as some correspondents, who have been covering Burundi’s political unrest, have complained about being subjected to threats by police and security forces.

Meanwhile, Pacifique Nininahazwe, a Burundian civil society leader, described as a "joke" the government’s announcement that there are no more protests.

"If there are no more demonstrations, why is it the police fire every morning and every night in Bujumbura's neighborhoods? Why do we bury people every day killed by the police?" Nininahazwe asked.

Opposition leader Frederic Bamvuginyumvira also denounced as "pure lies" the Burundi administration’s comments regarding the demonstrations.

In a separate development on Thursday, Said Djinnit, the United Nations special envoy to the Great Lakes region, stepped down from his role as a mediator in negotiations between Burundi's warring factions.

Djinnit has hosted talks between the Burundian government, civil society groups, the opposition groups and the ruling party over the chaos in the violence-wracked country, but there has been no major progress.

The chaos in Burundi erupted late April after the National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy, which is the ruling party in Burundi and known by its French acronym, CNDD-FDD, designated the incumbent president as its candidate for the next presidential election.

Opposition groups say Nkurunziza’s bid for a third consecutive term in office is illegal. They also argue that the current electoral commission panel lacks the authority as two of its five regular members are said to have fled the country. 

Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader from the majority Hutu tribe, has been in power for two successive terms since 2005.

In October 1993, Melchior Ndadaye, the first democratically-elected president of Burundi, was assassinated, triggering deadly ethnic conflict between the Hutu majority and minority Tutsis. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the African nation's 13-year civil war that ended in 2006.

SSM/KA/HMV