Since 4 August four of Burundi's five provinces, including the largest city Bujumbura, have been without electricity. State utility Regideso said in a social media statement that the outages are linked to work on connecting a new substation and are expected to continue until 14 August.

AFP reported that power supply has been reduced by as much as 80 percent nationwide. The situation is compounded by a fuel shortage, which is already affecting economic activity and public services. In parts of the capital some residents have been without power, running water and internet for almost a week.

The crisis is particularly acute in healthcare facilities. At the Prince Regent Charles hospital in the Buenzi district freezer units failed, and relatives of the deceased were asked to collect bodies. Many backup generators are unusable because there is no fuel.

A government official who spoke to AFP anonymously described conditions in one neighborhood, saying they had been "three days without electricity" and that late in the evening water had been available for only an hour.

Banks, shops, internet cafés and offices have all been disrupted. In some Bujumbura neighborhoods there has been no power since the morning of 7 August, while in others electricity returns only briefly, damaging household and office equipment, according to local residents quoted by SOS Médias Burundi.

A representative of the energy ministry, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the grid is worn out from the colonial era and that Bujumbura is experiencing an unprecedented situation that could persist for some time.

Observers note parallels with a ten-day outage in Sudan in July that affected Port Sudan and Atbara, where a substation failure also cut water supplies and was linked to deaths; residents there warned of intolerable conditions amid heat and a risk of cholera outbreaks.

Immediate concerns in Burundi include protecting patients and preserving medical supplies that require refrigeration, restoring water and communications, and securing fuel for generators. Regideso's stated repair timetable runs through 14 August, but repairs and fuel deliveries will determine how quickly services can be reliably restored.