1965 Burundian coup d'état

On October 18, 1965 a group of Hutu officers in the Burundian Army attempted to overthrow the elected government in a coup d'état. The coup was unsuccessful and its leaders were later executed. In addition, due to the ethnicity of the coup's leaders, Tutsi members of the armed forces purged Hutu from their ranks and carried out reprisal attacks which ultimately claimed the lives of up to 5,000 people in a predecessor to the 1972 Burundian Genocide.

The coup caused the King of Burundi to flee the country, never to return.

The coup was the first of three over the next 13 months which ultimately culminated with the November 28, 1966 coup that brought Michel Micombero to power.

Background
The October 1965 coup occurred in the context of Burundi's unstable post-independence period and the Cold War's Congo Crisis in neighboring Congo. The coup attempt followed the assassination of the Hutu Prime Minister, Pierre Ngendandumwe, on 15 January 1965 by a Rwandan Tutsi who was employed by the U.S. embassy in Bujumbura, the country's first parliamentary elections in May 1965, and King Mwambutsa IV's subsequent decision to appoint Léopold Biha, a Tutsi, as Prime Minister despite the majority of elected parliamentarians being Hutu.