By AFP | 
The resolution was backed by the European Union and passed with 19 votes in favour, seven opposed and 21 abstaining.
Investigators should examine whether the violations “may constitute international crimes, with a view to contributing to the fight against impunity,” the text said.
The inquiry should also aim to “identify alleged perpetrators,” of abuses “with a view to ensuring full accountability,” the text said.
It urged Burundi, one of 47 Council members, to “cooperate fully” with the probe.
But Burundi ambassador Renovat Tabu slammed the text, insisting that dispatching more investigators to his country was “inappropriate and unjustified.”
He maintained that the expert report used as a basis for the resolution “contains falsehoods, lies and manipulations,” and insisted the situation in his country had “normalised”.
Activists meanwhile hailed the resolution, with Carina Tertsakian of Human Rights Watch describing it as “an important step toward ending impunity”.
The violence in Burundi has left more than 500 people dead and pushed more than 300,000 people to flee the country.
The violence has sparked concern over a return to civil war, like the one fought along ethnic lines in the country from 1993 until 2006 between majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, which claimed an estimated 300,000 lives.
It has also sparked fear of a wider crisis in Africa’s volatile Great Lakes region, with the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda having been fuelled by similar ethnic tensions. AFP
