It happened that night…

Neema didn’t know where she was.

She was having cold sweats in the night. Her body trembled as she lay paralyzed by the vivid nightmares. Her mind would not make sense of the hospital surroundings. People kept talking to her and she could hear them, but their voices were far away- like inaudible, indiscernible echoes.  She kept seeing the bodies fall, one by one, on top of her. She could still feel their heavy weight as she relived the hours she spent…underneath them. She kept hearing the drums as they came into the camp with their guns and machetes. She recalled the haunting screams and the agony of her people. She didn’t understand why it happened to them…

The story of the Banyamulenge Tutsi is one of suffering, despair and tragedy. It is a story of persecution, of sacrifice and injustice. It is the story of an ethnic minority. It is the story less told or known but that makes it no less important.

In case you are not aware, the Banyamulenge Tutsi are Congolese who speak the same Rwandese language and are found in various provinces in Congo (Africa). Before becoming displaced, the Banyamulenge Tutsi were farmers living in high plateau region of the South Kivu province in eastern Congo. You must understand the amount of ethnic minority groups present in The Democratic Republic of Congo. The country is an agglomeration of 450 ethnic groups, and all are considered minorities. This group is one of them.

The Banyamulenge Tutsi know exclusion and persecution, both political and social, as well as cyclic massacres which continue even today. It is a complicated political and social history from the 1964 Muleist period (a rebellion in Congo during 1964 against the Banyamulenge Tutsi)  until the Burundi refugee camps in 2004.

In the 1994 Rwanda genocide, Hutu extremists murdered nearly 1 million Tutsi in a government organized violence campaign. This spilled over into Congo when the Hutu villains fled across the border inciting local Congolese to attack Tutsi. Since this time- regular massacres have sprouted against the Tutsi.

Two other rebellions broke out in 1996 and in 1998. During the 1998 rebellion, Banyamulenge and other Tutsi were attacked, killed and imprisoned. Neema, one of the women present in “50 Women”, is a victim and survivor of many of these unfortunate events.

In 2004, after military confrontation, large numbers of Banyamulenge and other Tutsi survivors were forced to flee and seek refuge in Burundi and Rwanda. Those who fled were settled into a transit camp in Gatumba, Burundi. Most of the camp’s 760 residents were Banyamulenge Tutsi. Neema was also a resident of this camp.

I was introduced to Neema’s story through a young activist named Jean Claude Musore. I desired to make the story a part of “50 Women” to inform the public about the Tutsi and their befallen tragedy. Such injustices are, in essence, crimes against all of humanity.

Like Neema, Jean Claude is also a Banyamulenge Tutsi currently living in California. He is forming a ministry and a non-profit to advocate for other Tusti refugees resettled in the United States and provide spiritual guidance to those in need.

I first met Jean Claude in a café in Oakland, CA on a Thursday afternoon. I was going off of about 3 hours of sleep that day and was tempted to doze off, folded over the café table searching news updates on Lemonde.fr.

Although we never met in person before- the very second I saw him approaching me I instantly knew who he was. Call it intuition if you will, but it was the apparent light inside of him making him recognizable. We proceeded to talk over tea. My exhaustion slipped away as he explained in detail about his coming to America as a refugee, the genocide of his people in Congo and his motivation to reach out to other refugee populations.

Jean Claude grew up in Eastern Congo and graduated from high school with degrees in social science and communication. In 2004, he left the country during the civil war and began working for two NGOs: The Norwegian Refugee Council and the Dutch organization Health Net-TPO. These experiences allowed him to gain valuable experience working on an anti- HIV campaign in attempt to educate the Mwaro, Burundi refugee camp population about the virus. An experience he would carry with him to America.

Over a period of several years, he lived in refugee camps- experiences he says motivated him to start his advocacy for the disempowered Banyamulenge Tutsi. He developed a reputation for his work and was even apprehended by local authorities in one refugee camp, accused of being a spy, then subsequently tortured and released.

He is amazingly fluent in 5 languages: Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Kinyamulenge, Kirundi and Lingala in addition to English and French.

He began showing me pictures from that refugee camp in Gatumba, Burundi where one of the genocides occurred in 2004. The genocide Neema survived. Image after image revealed a desolate tent city which exists today as a horrifying nightmare for Neema. Hearing stories of the aftermath of such an atrocity are one thing- viewing images of the deceased are another. The most difficult images are those of the children. What a grotesque way to exit this world…

So what happened in Gatumba?

Late at night on August 13, 2004, residents of the Gatumba refugee camp in western Burundi heard a large group of people entering the village singing pleasant songs and beating drums. The intruders carried with them machetes and automatic weapons. In a two-hour slaughter, they killed more than 150 camp residents, most of them women and children. The attackers were members of a Hutu rebel movement. Many of the survivors of this had to be resettled in third countries as there was no option of returning to Congo, and back into the open arms of further persecution.

Then there were the images of the orphans on his slideshow- standing amidst a desolate landscape in front of dilapidated buildings and wrinkled UNHCR tents. I would like to say they were just camping “in limbo” and that they had a school to attend, changes of clothes and shoes on their feet. I would like to say they were not sickly in appearance or that the whites of their eyes were not jaundiced. I would like to say many positive things or even add a happy ending, but the truth is these orphans are lacking basic necessities of food, education, shelter and most importantly parents.

Neema would later tell me as I spoke to her through a Swahili translator, that orphans from her camp still call her to this day. She would tell me that their broken voices are painful for her to hear half a world away where she is almost powerless and her mind stained with the memories of that horrible night…

All of these elements are building blocks of Jean Claude’s mission. His mission is two fold: Through his organization Humura Mulenge, he has aided surviving victims and families of the genocide massacre of the Banyamulenge Tutsi. He desires to support survivors, victims and their families in building a life in America by referring them to the appropriate agencies and non-profit organizations to receive legal, medical, and social services.  He also seeks to encourage survivors to attend school so that they can develop their skills, build a career and make a difference to building a better future for tomorrow’s world.

The second part of his mission is the ministry he is currently forming. He explained the purpose of his ministry, above all, is to “proclaim God’s kingdom government and supreme authority to all mankind” and “to help meet the needs of those who have lost hope and restore their lives”. Jean Claude desires to help women like Neema, as the impact of such traumas often linger and the damage of the experience cannot be undone.

Neema told me that she still has nightmares about this experience. She has developed slight agoraphobia and finds it difficult to leave her home in addition to other psychological and emotional scars. She receives counseling now in addition to necessary modalities. Upon meeting her, I was utterly surprised at the amount of light inside her soul, and how brightly it still shined outwards. She is a kind woman with a soft voice and gentle face.

Through Jean Claude, I have heard many stories of the suffering of his people. He has introduced me to a world I did not know of before. By including the story of one of the Banyamulenge survivors in the “50 Women” book, I desperately hope that I can help Jean Claude raise awareness regarding the atrocities plaguing his people for decades. The landscapes of these situations change when the eyes of the world are watching.

Getting these severe issues on powerful “agendas for change” is just the first step. They’re always happening. Maybe in different parts of the world, in different time zones- but always, ALWAYS on our watches. What do I mean? Contemplate this for a second: Try to remember what you were doing on August 13, 2004, the night of the Gatumba massacre…

Visit the Humura Mulenge Survivors & Victims (HMSV) website to learn more