NewsTracker Answers for week of Oct. 05, 2015

Q: Bodies keep turning up on Burundi's roadsides and streams, and it appears no one is safe from a growing state of anarchy. Where is Burundi, a small central African nation on the shore of Lake Tanganyika?

Circle the area on this map

Q: Although the current violence is political, Burundi has a history of deadly fighting between the country’s Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. A rebel group reportedly is being formed on Burundi's northern border with which nation that suffered a genocidal Hutu-Tutsi conflict?

A. Kenya

B. Rwanda

C. Somalia

D. Uganda

B. Burundi is bordered by Rwanda to the north, Tanzania to the east and south and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) to the west. In the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, an estimated 500,000–1 million Rwandans were killed, constituting as much as 70% of the Tutsi and 20% of Rwanda's total population.

Q: There have been mass arrests of opponents of President Pierre Nkurunziza, who recently was elected to a controversial third term in office. Burundi, Rwanda and DR Congo all gained independence in the 1960s from which European nation?

A. Belgium

B. Britain

C. France

D. Germany

A. Belgium took over the territory that is now Burundi from a defeated Germany after World War I. Burundi was an independent kingdom for more than 200 years before it was seized by Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Belgium exploited rivalries between Tutsi and Hutu to maintain its colonial control.

Q: The current political upheaval has added to the misery of the world's fifth poorest nation. Which of Burundi's neighbors is even poorer?

A. Tanzania

B. Rwanda

C. DR Congo

C. The Democratic Republic of Congo has a Gross Domestic Product of $700 per person compared with $900 for Burundi. The African nations of Somalia and the Central African Republic rank at the bottom at $600 per person per year.

Q: Burundi is one of Africa's smallest nations with an area of 10,745 square miles. That is slightly larger than which U.S. state?

A. Arkansas

B. Connecticut

C. Delaware

D. Massachusetts

D. Massachusetts has about 6.7 million people living on 10,554 square miles, with most of its people living in urban areas. Nearly 90 percent of Burundi's 10.7 million people live in rural areas and most of them are subsistence framers. The poverty-stricken population is growing at the third fastest rate in the world.