Flooding in Gatumba (western Burundi). Screenshot from the video “Burundi: Severe Flooding” on the Tv5monde Info YouTube Channel. Fair use.

This article was published as part of the training on Climate Justice in Africa.

Burundi, a country in the Great Lakes region of Eastern Africa, experiences heavy rainfall nine months of the year. After a three-month summer period, the first raindrops fall in September.

Although the rainy season is necessary, it also causes families to suffer, leading to panic and anger. Water from the mountains overlooking Bujumbura, the economic capital in eastern Burundi, regularly claims lives. This rainfall also causes some citizens to become environmentally displaced, bringing schools and businesses to a complete standstill.

The reasons for these disasters are many: unregulated construction, irresponsible deforestation, a lack of resilient strategies acknowledging this recurring phenomenon, and the climate crisis affecting Africa despite being the least polluting continent.

As a result, the rainy season in Bujumbura causes many deaths every year. In October 2024, rainwater swept away and killed two children. The children’s bodies were recovered from a ditch in the Bukirasazi commune, northern Bujumbura. As they walked home from school, a strong current of rainwater from the mountains caught them unaware.

Anonymous witnesses say these kinds of accidents are common during rainy seasons. In an interview with Global Voices, they denounced the authorities’ silence on this recurring deadly phenomenon:

Les autorités nous ont abandonnés alors qu'elles sont au courant de ce qui nous arrive à chaque saison pluvieuse. Cette pluie tue, perturbe le sommeil, et produit des déplacés climatiques qui voient leurs maisons noyées à chaque saison des pluies.

Although the authorities know what happens to us every rainy season, they have abandoned us. This rainfall kills, disrupts sleep, and results in environmentally displaced people every rainy season due to their homes flooding.

Financial impact on most disadvantaged people

The damage heavy rainfall causes can reduce incomes in specific occupations, especially for truck drivers who deliver building materials or obtain their supplies in Bujumbura’s outlying districts. As drivers cannot drive their trucks on impassable roads, their incomes fall by half. The monthly salary for this trade ranges between BIF 572,679 (USD 192) and BIF 1,777,536 (USD 596). The country’s average monthly income is between BIF 757,600  (USD 254) and BIF 2,289,638 (USD 768).

Nzeyimana Thomas, a building materials supplier, said:

Pendant la saison des pluies excessives, nous enregistrons une baisse énorme de nos revenus. Un camion qui faisait dix tours en été fait cinq tours en période pluvieuse.

During severe rainy seasons, our incomes drop dramatically. A truck that makes ten visits in the summer only makes five in rainy seasons.

Samuel, a truck driver we met in a parking lot at Petit séminaire de Kanyosha (the Junior Seminary of Kanyosha) in southern Bujumbura, explains:

Les camions s’embourbent plusieurs fois dans des routes  en boue et que le dépannage prend de nombreuses heures. Un manque à gagner irrécupérable.

The trucks regularly get stuck on muddy roads, and repairs can take several hours. This results in an irrecoverable loss of earnings.

A truck owner, who asked to remain anonymous, condemned the state of the roads despite the taxes that authorities impose:

Nous payons une bagatelle de plusieurs millions de francs burundais mais le gouvernement ne songe pas à nous construire de bonnes routes.

We pay several million Burundian Francs, but the government doesn’t intend to build any adequate roads for us.

Denial of responsibility

Article 35 of the Burundian Constitution stipulates that the Burundian government is responsible for land-use planning:

La gestion des ressources naturelles, l'utilisation rationnelle efficace et efficiente est une mission première du gouvernement.

The government’s primary mission is to ensure the proper management and rational, effective, and efficient use of natural resources.

As such, victims of recurrent flooding during the intense rainfall periods between November and April say they are entitled to demand effective measures and laws. These include the construction of adequate roads and robust water mains.

In an interview with Global Voices, Bigirimana Constantin, director-general of the Burundi Road Agency (ARB), acknowledged:

Les eaux de pluie en provenance des montagnes surplombant Bujumbura causent d'énormes dégâts, nous le savons. Elles détériorent l'état des routes, empêchant les usagers à vaquer normalement à vaquer normalement aux activités.

We know the rainwater from the mountains overlooking Bujumbura causes tremendous damage, affecting the condition of the roads and preventing their users from going about their everyday activities.

However, he also condemned the destruction of the vegetation cover, making way for unregulated construction with the full knowledge of the authorities. According to Constantin, the authorities and citizens downplay the impact of their actions on the environment:

L’urbanisation est mal faite, les infrastructures d'évacuation des eaux sont très vieilles et les gens jettent n’importe quoi n’importe où. Il faut une solution telle le renouvellement des ouvrages de traversée. L’assainissement actuel date de longue date et n’est pas adapté à la situation actuelle d’occupation de la ville.

Urbanization is flawed, the drainage infrastructure is old, and people often dump anything anywhere. A solution, such as renewed crossing structures, is necessary. The current sewage system is also old and unsuitable for the city’s current circumstances.

Constantin also explained how the government has allocated substantial budgetary resources to address climate change-related matters. Moreover, in 2023, the government signed two grant agreements with the African Development Bank to help build its climate change resilience.

The same expert says that some of this work also falls to the general population:

La responsabilité du curage des caniveaux qui doivent être entretenus pour leur durabilité incombe aux citoyens et à l’administration.

Cleaning the gutters to maintain their sustainability falls to the government and citizens alike.

Scale of damage overwhelms government

The Burundian government has turned to international aid to address the increasing climate change-related damage and urban overpopulation. Innocent Banigwaninzigo, an environmentalist and president of l’Association Ensemble pour la Protection de l’Environnement (Association for Environmental Protection or ASEPE), a non-profit organization committed to environmental protection in Burundi, told Global Voices:

L'État burundais à lui seul ne peut pas faire face aux besoins en cours et en activités préventives liés aux changements climatiques. Et les cas des victimes des changements climatiques se sont multipliés en termes de fréquence et en termes de dégâts causés.

The Burundian government cannot meet the country’s current needs alone or implement climate change prevention measures. Due to the frequency and damage caused, the number of climate change victims has proliferated.

However, he also encourages the government to increase its disaster management budget:

Le pays doit séduire les partenaires mais nous avons vu que dans le passé, les aides pouvaient être suspendues brusquement pour des raisons diverses, politiques ou de gouvernance. Le nombre des victimes des changements climatiques monte chaque jour au Burundi, spécialement en période de fortes pluies. Celles-ci font peur aux habitants du littoral du lac Tanganyika alors que sur les collines, les agriculteurs qui voient leurs champs pousser dans la verdure chantent et dansent la pluie. Le Burundi s’est doté des textes juridiques pour une gestion rationnelle, efficiente et efficace des ressources naturelles; la constitution, le code de l’eau, le code forestier, le code de l’environnement et de l’urbanisme. De bons instruments juridiques qui ne sont pas respectés en pratique. La corruption caractérise les constructions anarchiques.

Although past experience has shown that aid can abruptly end for various reasons, including political and governmental ones, the country must attract partners. In Burundi, the number of climate change victims increases daily, especially during heavy rainfall periods. Although this rain frightens the inhabitants along Lake Tanganyika’s coastline, it makes the farmers in the hills, who see their fields grow greener, sing and dance. Burundi has established a legal framework for the rational, effective, and efficient management of its natural resources: the Constitution, the Water Code, the Forest Code, the Environmental Code, and the Urban Code. However, the authorities have failed to implement these legal instruments, and there is active corruption in unregulated construction.

Banigwaninzigo concluded that environmental governance is lacking:

Il faut une éducation pour un changement de mentalité et de comportement respectueux de l’environnement et comprendre la responsabilité de chacun vis à vis du dérèglement climatique et les conséquences sur la vie.

We must educate people to change their mentality and make them environmentally conscious, thus helping them better understand their responsibilities and the impact of climate change.

Added to this is the issue of overpopulation. Unregulated construction has taken over the forested areas that mitigate soil erosion in the mountains overlooking Bujumbura.

Although the owners of these buildings anonymously claim to have received plots of land and building permits from the authorities, many cannot provide any documentation confirming this. Some residents say the authorities made verbal allocations after pocketing the money.

Burundi’s vulnerability to climate change puts the public in grave danger. The government and authorities must harmonize their initiatives to tackle the growing impact.