Death toll from day of clashes in Burundi capital rises to nearly 90

Blasts and gunfire echoed around Bujumbura for most of December 11 and residents said officials spent the day collecting bullet-riddled bodies from city streets.

There was no fighting overnight and the capital's streets were calm on December 12.

Army spokesman Gaspard Baratuza said gunmen had attacked three military sites in Bujumbura, kindling a day of clashes across the city. He said 79 attackers were killed and 45 others captured. Four police officers and four soldiers also died.

Unrest in Burundi, which started in April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced plans for a third term in office, has unnerved a region still volatile two decades after the genocide in neighboring Rwanda.

December 11's clashes were condemned by the United States, which like other Western powers fears the Central African nation could slide back into ethnic conflict.

The police did not identify the gunmen. One of the generals behind the failed coup attempt said afterwards that his rebel group still aimed to topple the president.

Residents said some of December 11's dead were killed after being rounded up by the police in house-to-house searches, an allegation the police denied.

Kenya Airways, which canceled flights to Burundi on December 11, said it would resume flying to Bujumbura on December 13.

Until now, battle lines in Burundi's crisis have followed the political divide. But Western powers and neighboring countries fear prolonged violence could reopen old ethnic rifts in a nation of 10 million people.

Burundi's 12-year civil war, which ended in 2005, pitted rebel groups of the Hutu majority, including one led by Nkurunziza, against what was then an army led by the Tutsi minority. Rwanda has the same ethnic mix.

More than 220,000 people have fled the violence to neighboring Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Congo.