Survivors & Community Members Commemorating Gatumba Massacre

https://www.concordmonitor.com/2025/08/28/my-turn-remembering-gatumba-genocide/

Two weeks ago, our community gathered to remember something very hard, something many wish could be erased, but which must never be forgotten. On August 13, 2004, in a place called Gatumba, the world witnessed a horror that still lives in the hearts of many survivors. And here, in Concord, some of those survivors are our neighbors.

They go to school with us, work beside us, and sit quietly in our gatherings. Yet many do not know their story. To truly build an inclusive community, we cannot only celebrate together. We must also learn the pain that others carry, the history that shaped their journey, and the scars that still live in their lives.

Gatumba was not a battlefield. It was not a place where armies fought. It was a refugee camp, protected by the United Nations. Families who had escaped the long war in Congo came there believing it was a safe place. Mothers tucked their children into bed, fathers prayed for tomorrow, and children fell asleep believing they were protected. But safety never came. That night, men came into the camp. They sang gospel songs, songs of faith that the Banyamulenge people loved. Those songs were meant to trick and mock. Behind the voices were weapons, guns, grenades, machetes, and cans of fuel. They were not searching for soldiers. They were looking for families. They were looking for identity.

The attackers poured fuel over the tents and set them on fire. People woke up to flames all around them. They ran, but bullets met them at the edge of the camp. Some survivors tell of seeing parents running with their children, their clothes burning, their skin in flames, only to be shot before they could make another step. A mother remembers holding her young son as he bled to death in her arms. Another person remembers seeing a man burning against a tree until his body collapsed. These are not the details of war. These are the memories of genocide. By morning, 166 Banyamulenge refugees were killed. More than 100 were left wounded. The camp was ashes, and a whole community was changed forever.

But Gatumba did not begin that night. It was the result of many years of words and lies that told the Banyamulenge people they did not belong. For generations, the Banyamulenge lived in the highlands of South Kivu in eastern Congo. Yet leaders and politicians called them foreigners, strangers in their own country. These words gave permission to hate. They gave militias an excuse to attack. By the time of Gatumba, many Banyamulenge villages had already been burned. Families were left without food as roads were blocked. Children grew up knowing that they might need to run at any moment. Gatumba was not a mistake. It was the planned destruction of a people already pushed to the side of their own homeland.

The scars of Gatumba are not just numbers. They are children who grew up without parents. They are schools that lost teachers, homes that lost elders, families that lost their foundation. Survivors live today with visible wounds, scars that ache when the weather turns cold, injuries that never fully heal. They also carry invisible wounds, fear that returns with the smell of smoke, nightmares that never leave, the instinct to keep a bag ready at the door just in case they must run again. Even children born after 2004 carry this pain in silence. They feel it in the way their parents pause in the middle of a story, or in the way families live carefully, always aware, always prepared.

Perhaps the hardest wound of all is the wound of injustice. Many of those who planned the attack were never punished. Some small soldiers faced consequences, but the leaders walked free. Too often, the world spoke of Gatumba as “ethnic clashes,” words that hide the truth. Gatumba was not a clash. It was not two equal sides fighting. It was an organized, targeted attack on unarmed civilians. People were killed because of who they were, because of the identity they carried.

For us in Concord, this story is not far away. Survivors of Gatumba live here. They walk into our schools, they shop in our stores, they share life in our neighborhoods. Their pain is part of our community, even if we do not see it. To say we are inclusive means more than welcoming a neighbor’s food or enjoying their music. It means being willing to know their wounds, their history, and the truth they carry with them every day.

For me, standing at the commemoration was personal. I did not go only as someone remembering history but as someone whose own life has been shaped by displacement and the struggles of refugees. The story of Gatumba is not only a story of loss. It is also a story of why leadership matters, why the voices of refugees matter, and why we must never be silent. When refugees step into leadership, it is not about politics alone. It is about making sure that no child grows up believing they are unwanted, no family lives in fear of being erased, and no people are told that they do not belong.

Seventeen years later, Gatumba still speaks. It tells us that hate must never be ignored. It warns us that silence is dangerous. It reminds us that justice cannot be delayed forever. And it teaches us that leadership must be rooted in compassion, in courage, and in truth.

To the survivors, I say: your pain is not forgotten. Your courage is seen. Your survival is a story of strength that belongs to all of us. To our neighbors and our city, I say: this story is our responsibility too. When we remember Gatumba, we affirm that the lives of those who died matter, and that the dignity of those who survived is sacred.

This is why we need leaders who will not divide, but bring people together. Leaders who will not use fear to control, but hope to inspire. Leaders who will not close their eyes to injustice, but open the door to healing.

Gatumba is a painful memory, but it is also a call. It calls us to build a future where no one is left in fear, where no refugee wonders if they belong, and where communities stand together for justice and peace. Hope is not something we lost in Gatumba. Hope is what carried the survivors through the fire. Hope is what keeps us alive today. And hope is what will carry us forward, together.