Portal:Burundi/Featured biography/2

Cyprien Ntaryamira (6 March 1955 - 6 April 1994), was President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his death when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994.

Ntaryamira was born in the Mageyo zone's commune of Mubimbi, Bujumbura Rural Province, in what was then the Belgian-dominated United Nations Trust Territory of Burundi. He entered school in Bujumbura, but after an abortive Hutu rebellion in 1972, he and thousands of other ethnic Hutus fled the country.

Ntaryamira eventually received a degree in agriculture from the National University of Rwanda in Butare in 1982. During this time, he became politically active in socialist movements. He returned to his native country in 1983 to work as an agricultural official. He was a political prisoner of the regime of Colonel Jean-Baptiste Bagaza briefly in 1985.

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