Rights group calls for arms ban

Human Rights Watch on Friday called on regional leaders to impose an arms embargo on Burundi, covering both sides in the conflict, as a step towards an international weapons ban. In a statement the rights group said key members of the UN Security Council have indicated they would support an arms embargo if regional leaders showed support for the measure. “The trade sanctions haven’t stopped the civil war,” Joost Hiltermann of Human Rights Watch said in the statement. “But cutting off the arms supply could stem the pervasive human rights abuses that this war has inflicted on so many civilians.”