Cedrick Irakoze

I write this opinion piece with a heavy heart. Two burdens weigh on me: a tragic incident that took lives, shattered families, and caused destruction in Bujumbura on March 31, 2026, and the alarming decline in reporting standards I witnessed across the Great Lakes region. How It Unfolded At around 6:30 p.m., an explosion ripped through downtown Bujumbura, Burundi’s economic capital. I had been waiting for a friend near the Chinese-owned T-2000 shopping complex.

Writing and editing for an international audience is an interesting job. I like how they both constantly call for more action, day in and day out. Even as an editor who looks very busy receiving, polishing, validating, accepting, rejecting, and editing pitches and work from other journalists, my thirst for writing cannot be easily quenched by a few formal, sometimes necessary serious pieces full of data, figures, tables, graphs we mostly produce on the organisations’ request.

Discombobulating: “Animals are more humans than human beings” Disclosure: I am frank. I tried hard to retract this statement and apologize as some of my pals wanted me to do. I failed. I am not denying, for a second, the goodness of some people, the kindness that goes beyond expectation, the love expecting nothing in return, the ‘planting trees in whose share people do not plan to sit’ ideology, the Ubuntu. I am informed. I am a big fan of humanity and brotherhood. But no, it ain’t enough.