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Full-Text Articles in African History
Gatumba Massacre, Background Essay, Christopher Davey, Ezra Schrader, Fidele Sebahizi, Jean Paul Iranzi
Gatumba Massacre, Background Essay, Christopher Davey, Ezra Schrader, Fidele Sebahizi, Jean Paul Iranzi
Background
On August 13th 2004, 166 people were killed and 106 were wounded at the UN’s Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi. Nearly all the victims were members of the Banyamulenge community, a Congolese Tutsi ethnic group who were deliberately targeted in the attack. The massacre was carried out by the Forces Nationales pour la Liberation (FNL), a Hutu supremacist rebel group fighting in Burundi’s civil war. Understanding the Gatumba Massacre requires understanding what forced those Banyamulenge refugees to flee their homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and why the FNL targeted them. This background essay addresses the context …