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  Nindorera, Aruberi

  Aruberi Nindorera

  Aruberi began elementary school in the early 1980s and completed his national exams around 1989-1990. He attended primary school in Nyagatovu, moved to Marangara in Ngozi province, and then went to secondary school at Collège Buye in Burengo. He pursued a career in teaching and worked for the government, initially as a teacher, then in municipal roles, and returned to teaching. He currently teaches in Vumbi.

  The interviewee was very young during the 1972 massacres, but he shared insights based on his mothers witness to the tragedies. His father, who was Tutsi but had a Hutu mother, was targeted due to his perceived association with Hutus and his size, which was uncommon for Tutsis.

  His father, working in Kirundo, was accused of helping "traitors" and was killed. The family lived in a refugee camp, then moved to Nyagatovu.

  The interviewee recounted that during the 1972 killings, Tutsis, including some who were mistakenly identified as Hutus or suspected of supporting "traitors," were also targeted.

  Specific individuals who faced these tragedies, included his father and other Tutsis who were killed or disappeared under similar circumstances. Nindorera described his father's killer as Ndabaneze Laurent, who was a lieutenant in Kirundo, and reportedly involved in the violence and later killed in Vumbi.

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  Niyiragira, Venant

  Venant Niyiragira

  Venant Niyiragira was a fifth grader when the 1972 Genocide of Burundi began. He vividly remembers returning home from school and hearing that his father had been killed. Niyiragira said a close friend of the family witnessed a truck filled with soldiers force his father into the vehicle. The same friend told Niyiragira it might be safer for him to wear a dress as males were prevalently targeted by the militia. Niyiragira said at this time, soldiers were using hammers to smash their victim’s skulls in half before dumping their bodies, dead or alive, into mass graves. He and his siblings fled to the Congo to escape the violence. They slept outside for days until the Congolese took pity on them and welcomed them into a refugee camp. Niyiragira said he could never return to school again because he had too much hate in his heart.

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  Niyongabo, Elois

  Elois Niyongabo

  Niyongabo said he was forced to drop out of the fifth grade because that is when the 1972 Genocide of Burundi commenced. He recalled teachers telling him and his fellow classmates that they were taking a day off school and class would resume next week. In reality, Niyongabo said the school was canceled so the community could attend a meeting to prepare for the genocide against the Hutu. A chief commander that the community could not identify as Hutu secretly attended the meeting and warned the locals that there would be killings. Niyongabo lost his father and other relatives during the genocide. He said that his Tutsi neighbors took over their home and were never able to utter a word to the people who stole his father’s life and his family’s home.

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  Niyongabo, Protais

  Protais Niyongabo

  Niyongabo went to church on Sunday, April 29th, 1972 just as he did every Sunday with his family. As he and his family of 9 exited Sunday service, they could hear helicopters in the next commune. Niyongabo explained that people in his community were not accustomed to hearing helicopters so close to their homes and everyone became very intrigued as to what was happening. Niyongabo went home only to hear screams from the parishioners exiting the second mass session. Then, the following day, a group of people ran toward him and his father, screaming at them to run for their lives. They looked up to see that the ruling party’s house in their community was on fire. Niyongabo said the violence and house burning continued to engulf his community.

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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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  Nkunzumwami, Pimako

  Pimako Nkunzumwami

  Pimako explains how during the genocide in Burndi, violence seemed to have been orchestrated against Hutu intellectuals and wealthy individuals, including the interviewee's father. His father was arrested in 1971 and imprisoned under accusations related to political betrayal and theft. This arrest was linked to a larger campaign of violence against the Hutu people. The father was later taken away by a car, presumably for execution, which left the interviewee and his family in a state of uncertainty and fear.

  In 1973, fearing for his life, Pimako fled to Tanzania. After receiving reassurances that the situation had improved, he returned home. However, he found that the violence and loss had not ceased. He goes into detail in regards to the confiscation of his family's property, including land and livestock, by those in power who accused them of being "children of betrayers." This theft was part of the broader violence against Hutu individuals and their families. The interviewee speaks about the hardships of surviving the violence and the continued struggles to reclaim lost property and seek justice. Despite these challenges, he expresses gratitude for still being alive and the resilience to continue speaking about these experiences.

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  Nkurunziza, Yvette

  Yvette Nkurunziza

  Nkurunziza was an infant when her father was murdered during the 1972 Genocide of Burundi. Her father was a customs officer and a respected community member. Military officials arrested her father on his way to work, and he was never seen alive again. After his death, Nkurunziza explained her family’s living conditions worsened, and her mother sent them to live with their grandmother. Nkurunziza explained that because Tutsis killed her father, she was raised to hate Tutsis because all Tutsis were terrible people. However, Nkurunziza is proud to share that her daughter-in-law and grandchild are part of Tutsi, and there is no room for hate in their hearts. Now, she hopes the youth study the past so that this mass atrocity never happens again.

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  Nsekerbandya, Jeanine

  Jeanine Nsekerbandya

  During the 1972 Genocide of Burundi, Jeanine Nsekerbandya said perpetrators murdered her father because he was a police officer. The gruesome death of Nsekerbandya’s father traumatized her surviving mother so much that she was raised to hide whenever anyone knocked on the door or entered their home unannounced. Nsekerbandya said her mother received death threats long after her father was murdered. She was raised in constant fear of dying during a home invasion. Food was scarce, violence was prevalent, and money was nowhere to be found. Nsekerbandya said that in addition to taking all the family’s resources, perpetrators also stole her deceased father’s bicycle and would ride it around the community after his death.

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  Nshimirimana, Pascaline

  Pascaline Nshimirimana

  Pascaline Nshimirimana said she saw soldiers break through her front door demanding to know where her father and uncle were located. She watched in paralyzing fear as the soldiers took her father and uncle, forced them into a car, and drove away. Her family never saw them again. Pascaline said she and her four siblings retreated deep into the forest for safety. She explained that she and she hid in the forest for three days until their grandmother and a group of neighbors came searching for them. The children wanted to cry out for help, but Pascaline said they were too weak from hunger to speak loud enough to be heard. She said when the search group finally found them, siblings, the adults cradled the children, loaded them onto their backs, and carried them to their home. What should have been a moment of relief quickly turned to horror as Pascaline saw a military helicopter land outside her family’s home. The soldiers were looking for her other uncle, and once again, the children were forced to hide in fear. Unfortunately, the trauma did not cease after this incident. Pascaline observed perpetrators taking people from their homes, and she lived her life in constant distress as her country was under attack. Pascaline said her father and uncle worked for the local administration, and her aunt was a nurse. She believes that they were targeted because they were intellectuals. Pascaline said her grandmother struggled to support five children and worked incredibly hard to keep them fed.

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  Ntawumbabaye, Clotilde

  Clotilde Ntawumbabaye

  Ntawumbabaye said that in 1972, at age 14, she was in her family home in Gishora when she looked out her window and saw a machine digging up the surrounding land in her community. Horror consumed her as she watched a large truck unload dead body after dead body into the hole. The digging created a mass grave that would be utilized as a crude vessel for human remains. Day after day, the same machine would come to dig the land. Ntawumbabaye would watch truck after truck come to dump bodies into the grave. She later found out that her cousin was taken away, murdered, and tossed into one of the mass graves. She watched the perpetrators dig. Her uncle could not do anything about losing his child. Mourning was forbidden and punishable by death. Rather than seek justice and peace, Ntawumbabaye and her family were forced to walk past the mass graves every day as if they were not there.

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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.

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  Nyabenda, Deogratias

  Deogratias Nyabenda

  Nyabenda said soldiers disguised in the same camouflage as the rebels weaved their way through tall grass, armed with machetes, and started to kill any male in sight. Nyabenda explained that the soldiers told everyone to gather at 4 pm because the Hutu and Tutsis had established a peace treaty. As all the male citizens arrived for the meeting, they began to get slaughtered one by one. By the time the rebels realized they were being ambushed, many of them were already dead. Soldiers continued to flood Vuzigo, and Nyabenda said it didn’t matter if the victims were Hutu or Tutsi- anyone present was at risk of being killed. Among those who perished were Nyabenda’s father and three uncles. After his father died, Nyabenda shared that his mother became too traumatized to care for him. He became an orphan and made his way to Rwanda. Now, more than five decades later, Nyabenda said he hopes the next generation of Burundians learn their country’s history to prevent mass atrocities from happening in the future.

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  Nyzimana, Asteria

  Asteria Nyzimana

  Asteria’s father and grandfather worked as medical assistants at a hospital in Muyinga. Her father was passionate about helping nurses care for others in their community. One day, Asteria’s grandfather came home with horrific, life-altering news.

  At the delicate age of five, Asteria listened in terror as her grandfather explained that the perpetrators tied up her father with rope, loaded him onto a truck, and took him away. Later, she learned that her father was tied up with rope, taken by force, tortured for days, and then his body was tossed in a hole. Unfortunately, her father’s death became the catalyst for even more suffering. Their home was looted, they were forced off their land, and the family lived in horrible living conditions while her mother tried to support six children. Asteria said she and her siblings were becoming thinner and thinner. Eventually, she lost her younger brother due to sickness and starvation. Asteria said they were able to bury her baby brother with dignity- which is not something they have even been able to do for her father.

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  Simbananiye, Cécile

  Cécile Simbananiye

  In 1972, Cecile Simbananiye lost her husband, his father-in-law and his brother-in -law. Working as a salesman in Bujumbura, her husband supported his family with everything they needed. Cécile was a farmer at Gikiranya village. In 1972, people came from Bujumbura and told Cécile that her husband was killed. She didn’t see him again and all of his belongings were looted. She saw him the last time before he departed to work in Bujumbura.When the tragedy began Cécile already had five births. Cécile didn’t know what was behind the death of her husband. Still questioning about that, she saw people arresting Hutus in her neighborhood. They came and took them away one by one saying ‘’go you will come back after’’ and they ( people) waited for them to come back in vain. They also took away his father-in-law and her brother-in -law who were at Bujumbura. They arrested only the Hutus but she didn’t realize why. After the tragedy, Cécile sent her two children to school. They passed the national test of sixth grade but their results were given to Tutsis who didn’t pass, so they were forced to drop out of school. One of her children said: “and now they again wronged me, the grades I had were given to someone else so I didn't go back there”. Cécile didn’t mourn the death of her husband. In that period, nobody was allowed even to cry.

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  Sindabizera, François Xavier

  François Xavier Sindabizera

  Sindabizera comes from a village named Murore. He had three siblings and two parents who passed away in 1970. His only brother was a teacher at his school and was captured during 72, due to the accusation of engaging in political affairs. He was arrested for 6 months. Older students would mock Sindabizera about his brother being captured and claimed he was taken to Vumbi to be tortured. This caused him and his family to lose hope that their brother was still alive. Sindabizera's neighborhood consisted of Rwandan Tutsi families, where a rumor spread that claimed they were the ones who were the capturers of Sindabizera’s brother. Some of his neighbors were chiefs, who worked at the municipality, who were said to be responsible for taking his brother.

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  Yohani, Ndirikunze

  Ndirikunze Yohani

  Ndirikunze Yohani describes the events of 1972, remembering how tensions escalated as Hutus gained education and started to hold positions in civil service and the military. This progress alarmed the Tutsi administration, leading to targeted roundups beginning with military personnel, then students and teachers. Even Hutu policemen were arrested. The process of the killings involved administrators summoning people and then handing them over to the military. Those who were sympathetic to the Hutus would give them a warning in advance, allowing some to escape. Many fled to neighboring countries like Uganda to escape the risks of being killed for their ethnic background. Those detained were loaded into trucks and transported to their deaths The interviewee's brother, Segasago Piyo, a teacher, was among those arrested from Kabanga and later killed, despite initial release from custody. Yohani was not living with his brother but learned about his death when their mother attempted to deliver food to him in detention. The tragedy's repercussions brought to a lot of personal developments. One brother dropped out of school out of fear, affecting the interviewee's remaining family members.

  When Bagaza came to power, there was a change for the better, leading to discriminatory practices coming to an end and educational reforms were put in place.