U.N. Experts Probe Burundi Rights Abuses

United Nations investigators have begun work in Burundi examining allegations of widespread abuses in the troubled central African country, U.N. sources said Thursday.

Hundreds have been killed and a quarter of a million people have fled Burundi since President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial decision in April 2015 to run for a third term, a vote he won in July as the opposition staged a boycotts.

Anti-government protests were brutally quashed and killings and attacks have become a regular feature in the troubled country as the political crisis grinds on.

The team from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights began a four-month investigation in early May, a senior U.N. official said. They may visit regional nations to speak to those who have fled the months of violence.

The probe comes five months after the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva called for a team to be "urgently" sent there as concerns grow that Burundi risks descending once again into civil war.