other roles, he taught at the Higher Institute for Military Cadres (Institut supérieur des cadres militaires, ISCAM) where he made important personal contacts with officers in the Burundian National Army who would subsequently become leading figures within the major rebel groups during the Civil War. Nkurunziza married Denise Bucumi in 1994. Burundian Civil War and CNDD–FDD, 1995–2005 The newly elected president Melchior Ndadaye was assassinated in an attempted coup d'état in October 1993. The killing sparked a wave of ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi factions and the start of the Burundian Civil War. Nkurunziza was still teaching at the University of Burundi but was forced to flee in 1995 after hundreds of Hutu students were killed. He spent several years in hiding in the bush and was himself sentenced to death in absentia by a government-backed court in 1998 for planting land mines. At the time, he became associated with the moderate rebel group National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Conseil National Pour la Défense de la Démocratie – Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie, CNDD–FDD), largely supported by ethnic Hutus. By 1998, he had risen to the position of General Secretary of the CNDD–FDD and was in charge of coordinating the political and military wings. He fought for their militia and gained the nickname "Pita". He was nearly killed near Gitega in 2001 but interpreted his survival as a sign that he was destined to lead the group. Nkurunziza himself became a born-again Protestant and supported the integration of Tutsis and other minority groups into the CNDD–FDD. All five of Nkurunziza's siblings were killed in the Civil War, three of whom while fighting for the CNDD–FDD. Nkurunziza became the president of the CNDD–FDD on 28 August 2000 and presided over the movement as it moved towards a political compromise with the government. A series of agreements in 2003 paved the way for the CNDD–FDD to enter national politics, and allowed Nkurunziza to be reunited with his wife and surviving family members. He became Minister for Good Government and the General Inspection of the State in the transitional government of Domitien Ndayizeye which was considered "a springboard post at a moment when electoral preparations were under way to complete the transition". He was re-elected president of the CNDD–FDD, now a political party, in August 2004, and became its candidate for