Twenty-two years is far too long for survivors of one of the region’s most horrific massacres to wait for justice. On the night of August 13, 2004, armed attackers descended on the Gatumba refugee camp located in the western part of Burundi and killed 166 Banyamulenge refugees, many of them women and children. Earlier, when they arrived in the small town that is a few kilometres from the Congolese border, they thought they had escaped the killers who had hounded them out of their homes in the eastern DR Congo. They felt they were safe at last, only to be slaughtered in a place where they were supposed to be protected. More than two decades later, those who survived the attack and families of the victims are still waiting for accountability. Human rights bodies have previously documented how investigations and judicial proceedings failed to deliver justice despite the scale and gravity of the crime. However, it is not too late for Burundi to do the right thing. The leadership in Gitega should reopen and pursue credible investigations, cooperate with relevant regional and international mechanisms, and ensure that anyone against whom sufficient evidence exists faces justice. Time cannot be allowed to erase responsibility for crimes of such magnitude. Justice is important not only for the families that have spent 22 years carrying the pain of Gatumba. It also sends a message that people cannot be targeted, persecuted or killed simply because of their identity and expect the passage of time to provide protection from accountability. Burundi’s failure to decisively address Gatumba is particularly troubling against the backdrop of the continuing persecution and violence confronting Congolese communities in eastern DR Congo. The lesson from Gatumba should have been that ethnic hatred, dehumanisation and targeted violence must never be tolerated, wherever they occur. Instead, silence and indifference risk emboldening those who believe they can persecute vulnerable communities without consequence. Burundi, like every country in the region, has an obligation to stand clearly against identity-based violence. That begins by addressing injustices committed within its own territory. The Gatumba survivors are not asking for a favour. They are asking for something any victim of such an atrocity deserves: truth, accountability and justice. Twenty-two years have already been lost. Gitega cannot undo that failure, nor can it bring back those who were murdered. But it can still choose to stand on the right side of history. Burundi must do better. And it can start with Gatumba.
