The European Union is in the process of removing financial restrictions on Burundi, the president’s office has said.

The decision to lift the ban on restrictions was communicated to Burundi’s president when he met the EU delegates on Monday in the political capital, Gitega, the president’s office announced on Twitter.

The EU is set to formally begin the lifting of the restrictions.

The EU representative in Burundi, Claude Bochu, said that this is “a starting process to lift the ban on Burundi”.

In 2016, the EU suspended direct financial support to the Burundian government over human rights violations after the unrest that followed the failed coup of 2015.

Since 2020, under President Evariste Ndayishimiye, Burundi has made efforts to restore rights and foreign relations, and had approached the EU to lift the ban.

But different rights groups on Monday wrote a petition to the EU deploring “widespread impunity for past and ongoing serious human rights violations” in the country.