Burundi’s Foreign Affairs Minister Édouard Bizimana has issued a pointed warning to Kenya, saying continued “hate speech” targeting Burundians could jeopardize relations between the two East African nations.
“Kenyans live peacefully in Burundi. But if this hate speech against Burundi continues, things will certainly change. Kenya’s government is responsible for the lives of Burundians living in Kenya,” Bizimana wrote on X, tagging Kenya’s Parliament.
The unusually blunt intervention from Burundi’s top diplomat lands amid a widening dispute in Kenya over foreign nationals working in small-scale trade. President William Ruto recently ordered measures to reserve certain small businesses for Kenyan citizens, arguing that foreigners should not crowd out local economic opportunity.
The policy has already unsettled East African nationals living in Kenya, Burundians among them. Tensions escalated further after Kenyan lawmakers publicly singled out Burundian workers in one case, a legislator complained that construction firms favoured Burundian labor because it came cheaper than local hires. The debate has since spilled beyond domestic labor policy into broader questions about how EAC member states treat one another’s citizens.
Unverified reports circulate online
By Sunday, posts had begun circulating on social media alleging that some Burundians in Kenya had been harassed, with some accounts appealing for help. Burundi Times has not been able to independently verify these claims, and no Kenyan or Burundian official has confirmed specific incidents of harassment tied to the dispute. Kenyan authorities have not commented on the posts, and it remains unclear how many of the claims, if any, describe distinct events rather than repeats or exaggerations of the same account. We are continuing to seek verification and will update this story as more information becomes available.
Thousands of Burundians live and work in Kenya, Kenyans likewise operate businesses in Burundi. A breakdown in relations would hit ordinary livelihoods on both sides and cuts against the EAC’s Common Market framework, which is built on free movement of labor, goods and capital among member states. Burundi Times has reported that Ruto’s directive could test that integration project directly, given how many neighboring-state traders depend on Kenya’s market.
Relations under strain, not yet rupture
Kenya and Burundi have historically kept close ties within the EAC, and Nairobi has long drawn Burundians for work, study and business. Bizimana’s decision to air this grievance publicly signals that Burundi’s government now sees the treatment of its citizens in Kenya as a live concern not just online noise. The unverified reports of harassment, circulating the same day, add urgency to that concern even without confirmation.
The pressure now sits with Nairobi whether it responds to Bizimana’s warning, and whether it can enforce its economic and immigration agenda without that agenda curdling into nationality-based hostility. For Gitega, the challenge is the mirror image defending its citizens abroad without triggering an escalation that undercuts both bilateral relations and the wider EAC project.
As of now, Burundi has not announced any reciprocal restrictions on Kenyan citizens. But Bizimana’s intervention and the unconfirmed reports now circulating alongside it has already pushed what began as a domestic Kenyan policy argument into a bilateral, and increasingly volatile, diplomatic issue.
