Twenty two year later, the ethnic Tutsi Congolese Banyamulenge are still pressing on for Justice after 166 of them were exterminated while exiled in Burundi.
They are concerned for lack of justice and demand that those responsible finally be brought to justice.
On August 13, 2004 166 Congolese refugees were massacred in a UN-run transit camp in Gatumba, near the border between the DRC and Burundi.
Among the victims were 154 members of the Banyamulenge community and 12 members of the Babembe community.
On Thursday, Banyamulenge community of Bukavu, in South Kivu province, convened a Résidence Hotel to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the Gatumba massacre.
Mugabe Commando, one of the survivors of the heinous massacre recounted his experience.
“I saw my friends, children, fathers, and mothers killed,” he told the gathering.
He added, “It was around 10 p.m. in Gatumba. We heard people singing, then gunfire. People started being killed. Others were burned alive in buildings with gasoline. I saw my friend Askof killed. My uncle was wounded. My little brother and I ran outside.”
However, he said, twenty two year later, “those who killed our brothers walk free.”
“For 22 years, we have demanded justice. We ask the international community, our country, and neighboring countries to deliver justice,” Mugabe says.
He adds, “those who killed our brothers walk free, without fear. But we remain hopeful that one day, those who killed our brothers in Gatumba will be brought to justice.”
The massacre, perpetrated on the night of August 13-14, 2004, was initially claimed by the National Liberation Front (FNL), then a Burundian Hutu rebel movement.
Pasteur Habimana, who was the FNL spokesperson at the time, assumed responsibility for the attack before retracting his statement.
Several legal proceedings were subsequently initiated in the DRC, Burundi, and Rwanda, as well as with the International Criminal Court (ICC).
