The Burundian President made the declaration on December 30, 2015.

Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza said Wednesday, December 30, 2015 that he would fight proposed African Union peacekeepers if they set foot on Burundian soil, defying intense global pressure to accept the force, Mail Online reported.

"Everybody should respect the borders of Burundi. If the troops are in violation of this decision, they will have attacked Burundi, and each Burundian must stand up to fight them. The country will have been attacked, and we will fight them." Nkurunziza is quoted as having said in a speech broadcast on state radio.

He further argued that, "You cannot send troops to a country if the United Nations Security Council has not accepted it... the UN resolution says the international community should respect the independence of Burundi."  Mr Nkurunziza said, "When there are two warring forces then you can have a peacekeeping force. But this is not the case here, because we are facing a security problem. It is not a political issue, because this was resolved by the elections."

The African Union (AU) gave Burundi a four-day deadline on December 17 to accept a 5,000-strong force to halt months of violence, pledging to send troops even though Burundi said it was opposed to an "invasion force". The proposed force, the African Prevention and Protection Mission in Burundi, is known by its acronym in French, MAPROBU. No details of possible troop contributing nations have been given, or any timeline for its deployment.

AU Commission chief Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has written to the UN Security Council asking for "full UN support including the authorisation of a support package" for the force, the AU has said. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon earlier this December said that deploying UN peacekeepers to Burundi was an option to quell the violence.