Burundian police shot dead a soldier during clashes with demonstrators on the streets of the capital Bujumbura Wednesday, a witness and soldier said, amid high tensions between the two forces.

"A soldier has been killed, he was shot in the heart, it is a police officer who fired," a soldier told AFP. For the past week since a failed coup, it has been the army -- largely seen as more neutral than the police -- that has tried to stem anti-government protests. But police on Wednesday returned to the streets.