DRC: Banyamulenge demand justice, seventeen years after Gatumba massacre
Volunteers transport the bodies of the victims of the massacre to Gatumba.
August 14, 2004. SIMON MAINA / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
On August 13, 2004, armed men stormed the Gatumba refugee camp, in western Burundi, near the Congolese border.
An attack attributed to the Hutu rebellion movement of the National Liberation Forces of Burundi.
It had killed 150 among Banyamulenge refugees, Congolese Tutsis from the province of South Kivu in the DRC, who had fled the civil war.
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With our special
correspondent in Bukavu,
William Basimiké
Cap on his head, mask on his face, Emile Mutware looks in his phone at the images of the events of August 13, 2004 in Gatumba. “
I feel the pain. It's really sad when we see the images, when we see our brothers slaughtered, when we remember our colleagues with whom we played football together, who are no longer there today, and only seventeen years later. , nothing has been done by the courts or by the competent authorities to bring justice to the victims. I lost my friends, my colleagues in the audience, my maternal uncle ...
"
Seventeen years after this massacre, it is still a feeling of injustice that dominates.
For the president of the "Shikama" mutuality of the Banyamulenge, Jean-Scohier Muhamiriza, if violence continues today in the east of the DRC, it is because there have been so many others who did not. 'have never been tried.
He hopes that the rule of law advocated by President Félix Tshisekedi will be able to invest in the Gatumba file that has remained unanswered.
"
We tried by all means to bring the case before international institutions,
recalls
Jean-Scohier Muhamiriza.
They will tell us that it is not the business of individuals, it is the business of governments.
So it's up to the Congolese government to take the case in hand and track down the genocidaires and bring them to justice.
As I speak to you, there is a terrible war in the highlands, led by some officers of the Congolese army.
Let these officers be arrested and brought to justice.
We are categorical on this point.
"
The 17th commemoration of the Gatumba massacre was also an opportunity for the participants gathered in Bukavu this Friday, August 13 to condemn the upsurge in insecurity in the southern part of the province of South Kivu.
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