Burundi’s President Evariste Ndayishimiye on Monday travelled to Equatorial Guinea for a state visit, the first time a sitting president of Burundi has visited a country other than Tanzania in the last five years.

This is the second state visit President Ndayishimiye has made since he officially took over office last June. His first visit was to Kigoma in Tanzania on September 19, 2020.

“The five-day state visit will give the two presidents the opportunity to strengthen the relations between the two countries,” a communique reads from the presidency.

In 2015 when the President Pierre Nkurunziza was attending an emergency summit in Dar es Salaam, there was a coup d’état was launched to oust him but it failed.

Thereafter, Nkurunziza made only one other official visit outside the country when he travelled to Kigoma in Tanzania for a few hours then returned to Burundi.

Since the 2015 failed coup, Burundi’s then first Vice President Gaston Sindimwo attended the East African Community Heads of State Summit.

Until his death on June 8 this year, President Nkurunziza did not travel outside Burundi again. Critics say the former president did not trust his entourage.