Burundi

Children in a Rwandan primary school. *Photo from Wikipedia July 1 is Independence Day of Rwanda and Burundi, celebrates the independence from Belgium in 1962. Belgian forces took control of Rwanda and Burundi in 1916, during World War I, beginning a period of more direct colonial rule. Belgium ruled both Rwanda and Burundi as a League of Nations ‘mandate’ called Ruanda-Urundi. The territory was under Belgian military occupation from 1916 to 1922 and later became a Belgian-controlled Class B Mandate (former German territories in West and Central Africa which were deemed to require a greater level of control by the