AS Burundi welcomes a UN resolution to bring it back from the brink of genocide, Australia has been told of why it needs to be concerned about the killings.

On Friday, the European Union said it would “evacuate temporarily” the families of staff in Burundi. The country descended into violence after President Pierre Nkurunziza launched a controversial bid for a third term in April. At least 240 people have been killed and more than 200,000 have fled the tiny landlocked nation.

The UN Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a French-drafted resolution that strongly condemned the wave of killings, torture, arrests and other rights violations.

Simon Adams, the executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, said Australia has a role to play in raising awareness of the atrocities.

He said Australia has a history of helping people from war-torn countries and needs to continue to do so.

“Australia may be an island but I think the best part of our political history is where we have not turned our back on people and places far from home where people are in need,” he told News Corp Australia. “I’ve worked in enough war zones to know that the support and interest of outsiders can make a difference. It puts perpetrators on notice that the world is watching, and it provides those who are being persecuted with the sense that they are not alone.

“I travel to difficult places all around the world and I’m always amazed by how many Australians I run into doing great work on the ground under the most difficult of circumstances. I hope that says something positive about us,” he said.

Dr Adams rejected a senior UN official’s claim that the world is less prepared to deal with a Rwandan-style genocide than it was in 1994.

“I actually thought that comment ... was completely unhelpful and inaccurate,” he said. “The fact that people all over the world are already aware of the crisis in Burundi and the dangers there is a huge contrast with 1994 in Rwanda.

“Burundi does however have all the ugly elements of situation where mass atrocities could occur. It has been plagued by bad history, a divisive President who believes that he has a mission from God, there is an assassination campaign that is spiralling out of control and the bloody rhetoric from senior political leaders is inciting people to exterminate their enemies,” he said. “The pot could boil over at any moment. All the more reason why Nkurunziza needs to pull his country back from the brink and that the UN Security Council needs to keep watching, listening and warning about real consequences.”