The request has gone to Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni who has to consider the regional security threat posed by calling such a meeting.

Burundi shunned an East Africa Community summit at the beginning of this month.

Now its calling for a meeting of regional leaders and stipulating its agenda.

President Pierre Nkurunziza blames his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame for his troubles since 2015 when he contested an unconstitutional third term in power.

He alleges Kagame is offering military training to Burundian refugees who left the country after an attempted coup that year.

Kagame, in turn, accuses Burundi of sheltering FDLR rebels responsible for the genocide in his country 24 years ago.

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A 2015 referendum allows the man, who has effectively run Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide, to stay at the helm in 2034.

Paul Kagame’s supporters say his popularity for bringing order and economic development to Rwanda trumps the criticism that he uses state power to remove his political opponents.

The election campaigns been marked by the mass resignation of 800 army officers.

Authorities have arrested four military brass.

One of these is a relative of former intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya who’d fallen out with Kagame and was found strangled in a luxury Sandton hotel in January 2014.

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