In December of 2023, Northeastern Illinois University students and faculty traveled to Burundi to conduct research for the Genocide and Human Rights Research of Africa in the Diaspora (GHRAD) Center. Over the course of sixteen days, this modest group of individuals diligently worked together to reveal a hidden piece of history that continues to plague Burundians every single day. The main objective of this endeavor was to gather as many survivor testimonies as possible from those who endured the extremely stifled and shrouded 1972 Genocide of Burundi.
Survivors were forbidden to mourn the death of their loved ones and persecuted if they spoke about the brutal massacre. Educated Hutu members of the community were targeted, hand-selected, arrested, slaughtered, and dumped into mass graves. This tragedy did not happen overnight. This tragedy did not happen by chance. This tragedy was a strategic and gruesome plan that was specifically created to eliminate the entire Hutu ethnic group.
Now, more than 50 years later, GHRAD is recording their stories allowing victims to finally shatter their silence. The testimonies collected by the GHRAD Center at NEIU are pivotal in creating a research compilation in the form of an Oral History Archive for the Library Digital Commons website.
This multimedia exhibit contains graphic images and sounds that some viewers may find disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.
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Mazina, Makariyo
Makariyo Mazina
When Makariyo Mazina was just 14-years old, he explained that Hutu militia abused, tortured and killed his father. His father was a successful business man that was taken off of is bicycle, tied up, tortured and was murdered. Mazina says after the militia took his father away, they came after him. One solider took Mazina to a banana plantation, knocked him down tied his hands behind his back, and then dragged his body to a nearby car. Mazina was dumped into a car with others who were also moaning and screaming in pain. Then Mazina said he was thrown out of the moving car, rolled down the road, and landed in a thorn bush.
Mazina and his family were never able to ask why their father was killed, nor were they ever able to persecute the perpetrators. When his father passed away- they took all of his father’s belongings and he and his siblings were forced to flee to Rwanda.
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Ndihokubwayo, Espérance
Espérance Ndihokubwayo
Esperance Ndihokubwayo said , “I saw horrible things, people were being killed before me, being rounded up before me, being loaded into trucks and transported to the judicial court before me. I was living nearby, they killed them before me and each night I heard people howling and agonizing. I couldn't sleep, I felt so sad. we saw the cars transporting[dead bodies], there were things like pits that they prepared to dump them into, they then piled them full and then covered them with ashes.”
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Nibona, André
André Nibona
Oral history of André Nibona.
In April of 1972, Andre Nibona was taken away to be killed but he said an administrator of the commune saved him and 70 other civilians. While their lives were spared, Nibona said they were forced to become servants for a Tutsi family and spent their days living in fear. Nibona explained that the survivors burned photos of all those killed to avoid “Gucusasa” – a Kirudni word for great sorrow.
Nibona is still trying to get his land back. The people who stole it are now dead, but their children have his land now.
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Nijenahagera, Sylvestre
Sylvestre Nijenahegeira
Oral history of Sylvestre Nijenahagera. After only four months of marriage, Sylvestre Nijenahagera said the 1972 Genocide of Burundi erupted and killings began to creep into his country. He evacuated Burundi in hopes of finding safety in Tanzania. He was sent back to Burundi because he said his name was written on a list of those who should be killed. He said due to a clerical error, he was marked as dead and this mistake saved his life. Nijenahagera escaped a brutal death by hiding on the roof of a church. He said without the help of the church, and a clerical error, he would not be alive today to share his story of survival.
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Niyonzima, Therence
Therence Niyonzima
Therence Niyonzima witnessed his father die after he took a spear to his side.
After he watched his father die in agony, he said he carries his father’s wound and death with him in his heart every single day. He has never recovered from this heartbreak nor has he ever been able to recover his land or livestock taken by the militia. Niyonzima also lost his uncle in the genocide but explained that mourning their deaths would be strictly forbidden and punishable by death. Niyonzima was forced to live with the person who stabbed and murdered his father right in front of him. He had to pretend it did not happen to survive. Now, Niyonzima encourages Burundian youth to learn the truth about the painful past and to not be arrogant or vengeful.
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Ntiranyibagira, Zerida
Zerida Ntiranyibagira
Nitranyibagira watched in fear from her elementary school window as Hutu pastors were loaded onto a truck by militia. Nitranyibagira said they suspected everyone that everyone loaded on to the truck was going to be killed and their bodies would dumped in Ruvubu. When Nitranyiba was traveling to Bururi, soldiers loaded her and her classmates onto a truck. Terrified, they were taken to Matna and they took refuge in an abandoned house in ruins. Every day, they lived in fear, praying they would not be the next to die. Nitranyibagira explained that the soldiers decided who’s lives would be spared if they found their victims’ faces attractive or not.