declared in August and cases of malaria were almost double those seen in 2015. UNLAWFUL KILLINGS Hundreds of people were unlawfully killed in targeted and indiscriminate killings related to the crisis. NGOs continued to report the discovery of mass graves. Amnesty International’s analysis of satellite images and video footage from a site in Buringa near the capital, Bujumbura, supported witness accounts that people killed by security forces in December 2015 were later buried in mass graves.1 In February, the Mayor of Bujumbura showed the media a grave in the Mutakura neighbourhood of the capital that he alleged was dug by members of the opposition. The government did not take up offers from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Independent Investigation on Burundi (UNIIB) to help document alleged mass graves. In early 2016, there were regular grenade explosions in Bujumbura followed by targeted killings. On 22 March, Lieutenant Colonel Darius Ikurakure, an army officer implicated in numerous human rights violations, was shot dead inside the army’s headquarters. On 25 April, gunmen fired on the car of General Athanase Kararuza, killing him, his wife Consolate Gahiro and his assistant Gérard Vyimana and fatally wounding his daughter Daniella Mpundu. The previous day Human Rights Minister Martin Nivyabandi and Diane Murindababisha were injured in an attack. On 13 July, unidentified gunmen killed Hafsa Mossi, a former minister and member of the East African Legislative Assembly. A senior presidential adviser, Willy Nyamitwe, was injured in an assassination attempt on 28 November. ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES Reports of enforced disappearances, often implicating the National Intelligence Services (SNR), continued and numerous cases from 2015 remained unsolved. Jean Bigirimana, a journalist with the independent media outlet Iwacu, was last Amnesty International Report 2016/17 seen on 22 July.2 His colleague received a phone call saying he had been taken by people believed to be members of the SNR. Two bodies in an advanced state of decomposition were later found in a river; neither could be identified. TORTURE AND OTHER ILL-TREATMENT Torture and other ill-treatment continued to be perpetrated at an alarming rate and with impunity by the SNR, the police and the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of the ruling party. Methods documented included: beating with branches, iron bars and batons; electric shocks; stamping on victims; denial of medical care; verbal abuse; and death threats.3 People who refused to join the Imbonerakure said they were beaten during arrest and in detention, apparently as a punishment. Others were beaten as they tried to flee the country. VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS In November, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women expressed concern about an increase in serious sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls by the police, military and Imbonerakure. ARBITRARY ARRESTS AND DETENTIONS There were regular police searches and arrests in neighbourhoods of Bujumbura where the 2015 protests had been concentrated. In these neighbourhoods and other parts of Burundi, police regularly checked household notebooks in which residents should be registered. On 28 May, the police arrested several hundred people in the Bwiza neighbourhood of Bujumbura. A police spokesperson was reported as saying that it was normal to arrest people near a grenade attack as the perpetrators might be found among them. On 25 August, the police presented to the media 93 people who had been arrested and accused of begging as part of the “clean city” operation. 101