Burundi: UN refugee agency marks first anniversary of Gatumba camp massacre

With Bible readings, tearful accounts of horror and calls by United Nations refugee representatives for the punishment of the perpetrators, survivors commemorated the first anniversary of the massacre of 150 Congolese in Burundi at a sombre ceremony in a Burundian refugee camp over the weekend.

Tears ran down the faces of survivors, both men and women, as Riziki, a 41-year-old refugee who chose that pseudonym out of fear of revealing her true identity, recounted the tragedy she, her husband and 10 children lived through less than a month after they had fled fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

“Like a torrential rain, gunfire from automatic weapons resounded everywhere,” she recalled of the night of 13 August 2004 when a refugee transit centre in Gatumba, just inside the Burundi border, was brutally attacked by a large group of armed individuals, killing 152 Banyamulenge refugees from Tutsi communities of South Kivu in the DRC and wounding another 106 people.

“No one could tell where it was coming from, but I said to myself: 'It is death'," Riziki added. She said they survived only because they had not found ground to pitch a tent inside the transit camp, but had found refuge with an aunt just outside.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Representative in Burundi, Kaba Guichard Neyaga, called on the Burundian authorities and the international community to combine forces to find and punish those who perpetrated the massacre.

The hour-long ceremony, held in a hall in Gihinga refugee camp decorated with signs that read ‘Right to Life’ and ‘Never Again,’ opened with a Bible reading recalling the exodus of the Jews and their longing to return to the promised land, and songs performed by a refugee chorus. “We will leave this ground of misfortune to join ours who died,” ran the words of one song.

At the time of the attack last August, there were some 800 refugees living in the Gatumba transit camp. They were part of a group of 20,000 people who fled fighting between loyalist and dissident Congolese army troops in South Kivu in June 2004. Aware that the border area was volatile, UNHCR had urged the Burundian Government to provide a secure camp for them well away from the high-risk DRC border.

After the attack, the Government complied. Many of the refugees have since gone home, but today Burundi still hosts 7,500 Congolese refugees in two UNHCR camps located at safe distances inland, as well as others living on their own in the Burundian capital, Bujumbura.