President Paul Kagame warns of genocide in Burundi

Burundi, which is about 85 percent Hutu and 14 percent Tutsi, plunged into turmoil in April, when Nkurunziza announced his bid to compete for a third presidential term.

A witness, who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals, said she was with Nzitonda when police arrested him.

On Saturday, nine people were shot dead in a bar in the capital Bujumbura.

The witness said he was grilling meats for customers when the attack started. Kagame said Nkurunziza was allowing his people to die. "The police started the search operation for hidden weapons in Mutakura", city mayor Freddy Mbonimpa said, adding the raids were being "done professionally, because the police are using weapon detectors".

The people of Rwanda and Burundi have close ties, and have taken turns sheltering in their neighbour when trouble has spiked, including during Rwanda's 1994 genocide, when at least 800 000 mainly Tutsi people were killed by extremist Hutu militias.

Global alarm grew ahead of a deadline of midnight on Saturday for civilians to hand over weapons or face a new government crackdown, drawing warnings from the head of the United Nations, the USA and the Hague-based worldwide Criminal Court. Kagame made the remarks during a speech shared on social media on Sunday, calling on Burundi to avoid ethnic violence in his country that led to genocide in 1994.

Fearing a fresh escalation of bloodshed, people on Sunday left parts of Bujumbura that have seen the worst recent violence.

"People are dying every day, dead bodies are being dragged on the streets every day", Kagame said.

But Nyamitwe said that the worldwide community had "fallen into the trap" of those who have wrongly warned of genocide, saying government speeches had "several meanings".

"Inflammatory rhetoric deployed in recent days by a few government officials and President Nkurunziza's planned security crackdown this weekend are increasing the risk of an outbreak of mass violence", the USA said.

Burundi has been rocked by violence since April, raising fears it could slide back into conflict after its 1993-2006 civil war, when a few 300 000 people died as rebels from the majority Hutu people clashed with an army dominated by the minority Tutsis.

"We call upon all Burundians, government and opposition to show restraint and to engage in political dialogue, the only way to overcome the current crisis", the statement said.

Families were fleeing their homes in Burundi's capital on Sunday, over fears the government will unleash a fresh wave of bloodletting as part of a crackdown to stamp out resistance to the president...

Last week, the country's Senate president Reverien Ndikuriyo threatened to "pulverise" regime opponents who do not lay down arms before the Saturday deadline.

"Today, the police shoot in the legs ... but when the day comes that we tell them to go to "work", do not come crying to us", he said.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame.