Banyamulenge History
In 2007, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration at the U. S. Department of State, began resettling Banyamulenge Tutsi from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Most of the refugees are survivors of a brutal massacre that took place at Gatumba Refugee Camp in Burundi, near the Congo border. The massacre was just the latest episode in a long history of violent persecution against the Banyamulenge Tutsi in the Congo. The Gatumba survivors actually join other Congolese refugees that have been seeking refuge in the United States since 2000.
The Banyamulenge are Tutsis who live in the South Kivu province, the mountainous eastern region of the Congo. They speak Kinyamulenge, one of over 450 dialects spoken in the Congo. The name Banyamulenge itself means people of the mountain. The tribe has been known through history as pastoralists because they raised cattle, by comparison with their neighbors they were perceived as wealthy because of the value of their cattle, but by every other measure, they were poor. The misperception of wealth led to the discrimination they have endured. They were, and continue to be devout in their Christian faith, which is the testament to what has sustained them through the tragic events you will hear of today.
Before the Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960, relations between the Banyamulenge Tutsi and other tribes in the region were usually peaceful, but rebellion broke out and the Banyamulenge Tutsi encountered war and forced displacement for the first time. During that period of history, many families were forced to flee their homes and villages for towns such as Uvira and Bukavu, which offered relative safety.
The decades since 1960 have been filled with acts of violence and persecution toward the Banyamulenge Tutsi, and other Tutsi that have been described as genocide. The genocide in neighboring Rwanda --in which 1 million Tutsi were slaughtered by their fellow countrymen-- finally gained the world's attention to the injustice of the long history of persecution against the Tutsi people. Nevertheless, since 1994 there have been regular massacres of Tutsi in the central region of Africa, which includes the Congo, Burundi, and Rwanda.
The Banyamulenge Tutsi protested the government's support of persecution of their tribe in the Congo, and that became the catalyst for a regional war that led to the events of the testimonies that you are going to hear today.
Dance
The dance that will be celebrated before you today is only danced at two high events in the Banyamulenge Tutsi culture: weddings and when a person accepts Christ as their Savior. At both events, the dance is performed as an act of worship before God.
Psalm 9
1-2 I'm thanking you, God, from a full heart, I'm writing the book on your wonders.
I'm whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy;
I'm singing your song, High God.
7-8 God holds the high center,
he sees and sets the world's mess right.
He decides what is right for us earthlings,
gives people their just deserts.
13-14 Be kind to me, God;
I've been kicked around long enough.
Once you've pulled me back
from the gates of death,
I'll write the book on Hallelujahs;
on the corner of Main and First
I'll hold a street meeting;
I'll be the song leader; we'll fill the air
with salvation songs.
We advise parents of this, but the truth may help the world to remember that hate can turn to despicable acts of violence when God is absent from the hearts of men. As we listen, may we remember that our God is faithful, and may we agree with the psalmist:
You, O God, see trouble and grief,
You consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you,
You are the helper of the fatherless.
You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted,
You encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
Defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
In order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.
Bizimana's Testimony
My name is Bizimana Gad Budugure, I am married and the father of seven children. In 1996, civil war broke out in the Congo, but it soon changed into tribal warfare with extreme acts of violence that were directed against my tribe, the Banyamulenge Tutsi. In 1998, there was another war that was classified as a civil war by the international community, but in our country, all of those years consisted of tribal warfare that was very dangerous for our tribe.
I was a businessmen/tradesmen and on the days prior to the war breaking out in 1998, I was far away from our home and doing business in Kantaga when the war broke out. In Africa, when you are a businessman you develop friendships with the vendors in each town you do business. The vendors I did business with in Kantaga were not Banyamulenge Tutsi, but they were my friends. They had learned what soldiers were saying; that all Banyamulenge Tutsi were going to be killed by the government, so they told me. I ran away from Kantaga, that was on a Thursday, I found out later that all the Banyamulenge Tutsi in that town were killed on the following Sunday.
I ran to Vyura where I knew Banyamulenge were living, I wanted to alert them to the danger. I found the soldiers had already circled the village. However, God did a miracle; some of the Banyamulenge Tutsi were able to escape the massacre and I ran with some of the villagers and fled to South Kivu province to a camp for displaced persons, eventually we had to flee across the Burundi border to the UNHCR Gatumba Refugee Camp. Because of the great distance between my family and me and these terrible events, I was separated from my family for nine years, from 1998 to 2007. I would like to tell you about the terrible events that my wife and children endured while we were separated because of the war in the Congo. I will tell you the story in my wife's words.
Very early in the morning that the war broke out again in 1998, soldiers surrounded our home and began pounding on our door, demanding entrance. My brother-in-law was staying in our home and I knew it would not go well for a Banyamulenge Tutsi man if soldiers found him there and so I hid him and our seven children before answering the door. I answered the door, they wanted to speak with my husband, but I told them he was not at home. They forced their way past me, and by God's grace, they did not find my brother-in-law or my children, but they took me in their vehicle to the interrogation facility where I was taken to an empty room and left for hours. While I was sitting there, I noticed mounds of abandoned men's clothing and I wondered who they belonged to, I began to fear for the lives of the Banyamulenge Tutsi in our town. After a long time, my interrogation began; they demanded information about my history, my tribe, I lied because I knew they would kill me if I told the truth, I told them that my father was Banyamulenge Tutsi, but my mother was from another tribe. They put a Kinyamulenge Bible in front of me and demanded that I read it, I lied and told them I could not read it. They asked me if I prayed, I answered yes, they asked what God told me, I answered that God told me He would protect me. The interrogators told me that I should say goodbye to anyone I needed to because I was going to die, I answered that I did not have anyone to tell goodbye. (I could not reveal that I had children, I was so worried about them). After some time had passed, I asked about the men's clothing across the room on the floor, I was told that the clothing had belonged to the Banyamulenge Tutsi men that they had already been captured.
The next day the other captives and I were loaded into a truck and transported to the airport, but on the way to the airport, the truck hit a tree. God sent a sense of foreboding over the driver of the truck and he would not take us any further, he turned the truck around and drove us back to the interrogation facility.
The officer who had secretly ordered our transport now had to get an official signature from the administration to have us taken to the capital city, but administrator refused because he knew that the officer would have had us killed when we reached the final destination, and so we were taken to a jail.
There were other Banyamulenge Tutsi prisoners already in the jail that we were taken to. The jailers had been deceiving the Banyamulenge Tutsi in our town by telling them that the jail was the safest place to be during the war and so they were allowing the jailers to bring them into the jail camp and keep them there to protect them from danger. The reality was, we were all prisoners of the government. (Concentration camp) I was so worried about my children, I did not know what happened to them and I wondered if my brother-in-law was able to care for them. After two weeks in the jail, I tried to bribe one of the guards with some of the money I had hidden on my body. I asked him to allow a friend of mine outside of the jail (she was not Banyamulenge Tutsi) to sneak my baby into the jail so that I could nurse her because I was in so much pain from not nursing my baby. When the head jailer found out what had happened he went into a rage. The soldiers were angry with me for bribing the jailer, they dragged me into the jail yard and tied my hands behind my back. I prayed that God would protect me. When the soldiers asked me where my children were, I told them they had been left behind when I was taken by the interrogators. They asked me again where my husband was, I told them again that he is away on business. They asked my where my brother-in-law was, I told them he was in Kinshasa (capital city of Congo). Then they told me, if you do not reveal to us where your brother-in-law is, we will kill you in his place. The soldiers began arguing with each other about whether or not they should kill me. They decided to drive me back to my home, they loaded me into a vehicle and drove toward my home, but they drove right past my home because I told them that my children had been taken by the UNHCR.
The soldiers decided to keep driving through the city to capture other Banyamulenge Tutsi families and take them back to the jail. After they had captured some of my people, they passed back by my home and went into it, and found my children and captured them. (Because all Banyamulenge Tutsi men were being rounded up and killed at that time, the brother-in-law had been taken to safety by fellow Congolese soon after the wife had been taken away by the interrogators, the children were left to fend for themselves alone in the home) It was later decided that all of the women and children from the jail would be moved to another location in the city. While we were being transported, we came to a roadblock. The soldiers at the roadblock wanted to kill all of us because we were Banyamulenge Tutsi, but the soldiers who were transporting us argued with them and told them they were responsible to transport us to another jail.
Life in the jail was very difficult; we felt death was very close. We were hungry all the time, four of us died from hunger. One of the women delivered her twins in jail, we didn't have a knife to cut the umbilical cord; we used a stick (Rose Mapendo now lives with her twins and seven other children in Phoenix, Arizona, her husband was killed while in the jail).
There was a jail next to ours where our own Banyamulenge Tutsi men who had been at officer training school before the war started were now prisoners. They all died in the jail from being beaten, or from starving to death.
In 2000, we were moved to another jail in Kinshasa, at this jail we were given food on the first day we arrived. We ate a little bit, but kept some so that we could feed our children some more the next day, but we did not receive any more food until two weeks later when the Congolese commander general came to visit us and he gave the order to the jailer to feed us. The jailer just gave us food for the next three days, but then no more.
Later in 2000, the I OM (International Organization for Migration) visited the jail and requested the release and resettlement of all the captives to a Cameroon refugee camp. While we were living in the Cameroon refugee camp, I received word through the Red Cross that Bizimana was alive! He was searching for the children and me. Unfortunately, because of many filing mistakes and the long resettlement process for refugees we were not reunited in the United States until 2007.
We thank God for his encouragement even though we have passed through so many problems we still put our trust in Him and we hope for a better future for our children. It is safe here in America even though it is difficult for our family to find jobs and to care for our disabled son.
Janine Nakirindo's Testimony
I am Janine Nakirindo. In 1998, after five months of married life, war started in Uvira. My two nephews and I were captured along with others, and forced into one of the make-shift jails the soldiers were making out of the hospitals, churches, and schools. We spent four days there without food or water and by the time we were rescued, many of the captives had died.
The war kept increasing in the Uvira province and so we fled to South Kivu province; it was a long and difficult journey--2 weeks without food, 180 kilometers (about 111 miles) on foot, Women carried their babies on their backs and carried their other children in their arms. When we arrived in South Kivu province, we were put in a camp for displaced persons; it was very difficult. There was a lot of malaria; many people lost their lives because of malaria. I gave birth to my first child at that camp, but it died because of malaria. That was a very, very sad time for my husband and me.
Later, I became pregnant with one of our other children. One day, my husband went to the city to try to do business near the camp where we were living, on his way back to the camp he was stopped by the rebels, beaten and killed. When I got word that he had been killed, I became weak from shock and I was affected psychologically because I was left as a widow at a young age. At that time, people from my tribe (Banyamulenge Tutsi) were killed only because of the way they looked and because they were born into our tribe. I do not understand why that happened.
Eventually, in 2004, we fled from South Kivu province into Burundi where we thought we might be safe for a while. We sought refuge in Gatumba, a UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) refugee camp. After we were there two months, rebels broke into the camp; they had guns and machetes. It was 10:00 p.m. and I was awakened by the noise of gunfire, screaming, and the smell of fire. The camp was burning.
My neighbor was shot; she called out to me to see if I was alive. She asked me for forgiveness and then she died. I tried to speak to my mother-in-law, but she told me to stay quiet. The sound of shooting kept getting closer to our tent; we knew we must flee. We decided to pray for forgiveness before we left the tent because we knew we would probably die and we did not want to die without praying. (In the African culture, it is taught that you must ask forgiveness from others and from God before you die.) My other neighbor whispered to me that all her children had been killed; she warned us to not use the main entry of our tent to flee because the rebels had their guns aimed at all the entries. She said to cut through the back of the tent and flee through the bushes. She climbed over the bodies of her dead children and started cutting the tent wall, I gathered my children next to me, my mother-in-law was close beside me and I started cutting through my tent wall. As I was cutting the wall, I turned around and saw a rebel coming toward the tent; he had a grenade in his hand. He threw the grenade into the tent, it exploded and most of the explosion hit my stomach, my intestines starting falling out of my body. I begged my mother-in-law to take the children; I told her I am going to die here. She reluctantly left with two of the children, and I laid there with my youngest child while the camp was burning around me. God protected us, the fire somehow extinguished when it came close to us. Several hours passed, my father-in-law finally found us lying there. When he saw me, he knew I was critical; he took my child from me and took it to safety. My last thought was, I did not want to die, I did not want my children to die, and then I lost consciousness. When I came to, a young woman stumbled over to me, she had a baby on her back, she was crying because she had been shot in the shoulder. I told her to be quiet because I thought the rebels were still there, but they had gone. The woman fell on top of me and died. The survivors who had been hiding came and removed the dead woman from on top of me, they took the baby from her back because it was still alive. They tried to help me, but I told them I cannot move, they found a car and came back to the camp to pick up all the people who were still alive. We were taken to a hospital.
I was triaged at a hospital in Bujumbura, Burundi and then spent one month there before being sent to Kenya by the UNHCR because the hospital in Burundi could not provide all the necessary medical treatment for me. I was airlifted to Kenya where I received more medical intervention, but that was not adequate. I spent a year in a hospital. I had four major surgeries, but the medical professionals could not repair the damage that the grenade had done to my internal organs. I relied on auxiliary breathing and external digestive intervention to stay alive. The UNHCR intervened by processing my case and resettling me in Michigan in 2007. I was told that the doctors in America have the knowledge and the skill to fix everything and make it right. I received one surgery in Michigan and the doctors told me that I needed another surgery to make my organs right, but I did not have the means for the surgery. I am now left every day with reminders in my personal hygiene of what happened to me and to what I have lost, but my hope is still in God.
We are now safe together here with our tribe in Sioux Falls, but my body is not healed from the wounds of that rebel's grenade. I am still trusting God that I will one day have the means to have the surgery that will heal my body. Thank you for listening to my testimonial today. Thank you for helping us resettle here, thank you for your encouragement.
Jean-Claude's Testimony
My name is Jean-Claude Nsengiyumva, I was born in Congo, South Kivu province. My father and mother, and my nine brothers and sisters had all been born in the Congo. I want to tell you what happened in my life because of the discrimination against our tribe, the Banyamulenge Tutsi. I was told from the time I was a very young child that I did not belong in the Congo, I was persecuted because of the way I looked and because of my heritage as a Banyamulenge Tutsi (the Banyamulenge Tutsi are inherently tall and slender and are known historically as cattle herdsmen). In 1996, the first civil war started in Congo, at that time I was at seminary. Truly, at that time I had many problems because I could not find any place to hide myself. When I saw the other students and administrators from my seminary running to escape, I followed them because they were running toward where my parents lived. We passed people who had been burned to death or slaughtered with the machete, and we passed women who had delivered their babies right on the road because of the trauma. We ran for many days, we had nothing to eat or drink. During that time I prayed, "God, you can take my life to get me out of this trouble."
The soldiers were shooting at us as we fled from the fighting, we had to run and hide, run and hide. Many of my peers were shot to death; I could not save them. We ran to a parish where we knew we could seek refuge. We were granted refuge, but we were only allowed to stay in that parish for three hours, then we started out early the next morning to see if we could escape and reach our village. When the civil war started my peers numbered 500, but on that morning before we started running again, there were only 270 of us left to try to escape the soldiers' killing.
A roadblock barricaded the road to our village, when the soldiers recognized that I was a Banyamulenge Tutsi, they began to beat me with clubs, chains, and the ends of their guns. My peers, who were not Banyamulenge Tutsi tried to protect me from the soldiers' beating and they begged the soldiers to stop, they beat me anyway. I was beaten so badly that my peers had to help carry me to my home, but when they got me there I found that everything was gone, the door was gone, everything in the house was gone, the house was destroyed. I could not find anyone. My mother was gone, my father was gone, my brothers were gone, and my sisters were gone. My peers left me there because they had to find out what had happened to their families. I was laid down in the ruins of my home; I was alone. I prayed again, "God, if my family is not alive, let me die, life without my family will be nothing." I stayed in our empty home for two days, there was no one left in our village, there were no sounds, nothing. Eventually, one man came looking for his children. He found me there, wounded from the beating. My mind was so confused, I thought the man was the enemy, I asked the man, "Are you coming to kill me?" He told me, "No." Then I motioned to him to kill me because I was too weak to speak. That man took me to the church where there were other Banyamulenge Tutsi hiding, but I did not find any of my family hiding there. I spent two weeks hiding with the others in that church.
While I was hiding in that church, we found out that the government had been overthrown. Peace finally came. People slowly began coming out of hiding and finding their way back to their homes. I had nowhere to go, I still did not know where my family had gone. A neighbor girl found me and asked me why I had not gone home because she had seen my parents in my home. I could not believe it I thought they were dead. I went to look, still not believing what she had told me, but they were there and my brothers and sisters were there. I was so happy. When I reached home, they told me my uncle and his two daughters were killed in their own home.
We tried to start a new life. I began my studies again, then after a few years in 2004, another war began. I was working in South Kivu province, just a little distance from my home. This war started from a misunderstanding between government soldiers and because one was from the Banyamulenge Tutsi tribe, then it was decided that every Banyamulenge Tutsi that lived in South Kivu province must be killed. The soldiers and my fellow Congolese started burning our houses and taking our property. They killed us with machete or by putting us in truck tires, pouring gasoline over us, and setting us on fire.
I was at work when the killing started, I ran home to my apartment. When I arrived there, I found my friend, a Banyamulenge Tutsi, had been killed in the apartment. I tried to escape the city into Rwanda, which is a country next to ours. I kept running, hiding, running, and hiding through Rwanda, Uganda, and finally many days later, I reached Kenya. I was just trying to survive, I finally made my way to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) office in Nairobi, Kenya. I was able to counsel with the officer and explain what had happened to me in the Congo, he understood. I was told I could go to Kakuma Refugee Camp. (Kakuma Refugee Camp serves refugees who have been forcibly displaced from their home countries due to war or persecution. It was established in 1992 to serve Sudanese refugees, and has since expanded to serve refugees from Somalia, Ethiopia, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Uganda, and Rwanda. According to current UNHCR statistics, the camp population stands at just under 50,000 refugees. In 2007, Kakuma Refugee Camp hosted 21% of the total refugee population in Kenya) I told them I cannot go to the camp because it would not be safe for me there because I am Banyamulenge Tutsi, I was worried there were no other Banyamulenge Tutsi in Kakuma. I decided to take my chances on the streets of Nairobi for a few days. I spent the nights lying on the ground just outside the UNHCR office hoping I would be safe. One day I saw an officer who was an American and he asked me what my problem was, I asked him if I could tell him my problem, he listened and encouraged me to go to Kakuma, he told me I would be safe there and that he would take care of me. I decided to enter Kakuma Refugee Camp.
The discrimination continued in Kakuma, life was quite difficult, much worse than what I expected. Kakuma is in the desert (99 ° - 104 °F), there is too much dust and too much wind. Scorpions and snakes kill people because there is no anti-venom available to them. There is no transportation. I found a job that was about 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) away from my dwelling, but I had to walk through the desert heat to get to it every day. There is no security in the camp so people kill other people, and are never punished for their sin. Stealing and looting is a normal way of life in Kakuma.
There is not enough water in the desert, only 10 liters (about 2 1/2 gallons) is given each day to every person at Kakuma. We had to wash our body, our clothes, cook our food, and get enough to drink with the 10 liters. We would only receive a total of 15 kilograms total food (cornmeal, sorghum, oil, and salt) every 16 days. When the day for the food delivery would arrive, we would stand in the hot sun for hours and hours waiting our turn for the UNHCR truck to give us our allotment of food, there is much corruption when the food delivery takes place, and food is stolen. Life at Kakuma Refugee Camp is very, very difficult.
I was alone in the camp until I met Felix and Desire, and some other Banyamulenge. We lived together and we became like brothers. There were others that we lived with there that have not made it out of the refugee camp and they are still suffering that life.
My wife, Grace arrived at Kakuma in 2006 where she and her brothers were reunited with their mother after fleeing from Burundi because of the genocide of the Tutsi tribe in their country. We became friends and then we fell in love, we married 2007. The process was started for us to come to the United States, but I would not leave without Grace. During that time, Grace became pregnant with our first child Deborah. We prayed and asked God to please help us in our process to come to America.
Felix had left for America in 2008, my friend Desire received his papers to go to America early in 2009. I was so happy that he was finally able to get out of Kakuma, but sad that we had to say goodbye. Before he left, we prayed together, and asked God that we would someday be together in the same in the United States of America. The day finally came for Grace, and our 6-week old baby Deborah, and me to leave Kakuma. We arrived in New York City, and we were delayed and had to spend the night, we were overwhelmed and very hungry. The next day we were flown to Chicago where there were more delays, we had no money to buy food, the English that Americans speak is not like the English that we were taught in Kakuma and so it was so difficult to communicate with the airport employees. Grace had not had any food for two days, and our baby was not getting any milk from Grace's breast.
There was a woman who observed us in the airport, she came over to us and sat down. She spoke to us and asked us if we were refugees, I answered yes. She told me she was a missionary and that she understood our troubles. She spoke to the airport employees and made the necessary arrangements to get us on the next flight to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She got us some food to eat and then she had to leave to board her plane, but she told us everything would be okay, and it was. We arrived in Sioux Falls and we were greeted by our caseworker at the airport and taken to our apartment.
God had answered Desire’s prayer, in a greater way than we had ever imagined. Felix and he had been resettled in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and they had been put in the same apartment complex as we were! Desire was walking across the lawn when our caseworker brought us to our apartment, he could not believe his eyes, and he started crying!
When we started English lessons at Lutheran Social Services, I met a teacher named Lois; she gave me a ride home from class one day. She asked if she could meet my family, then she told me she attended a church that loved people very much, and she knew that they would want to help us with some of our needs for the apartment. We were so surprised to find out later when she came back to our apartment with her husband, Jeff that the church that gave us the gifts was the same church that had allowed our tribe to worship in their building. We had already begun worshipping with our tribe at Linwood and we had not even learned that Jeff was your Pastor Jeff, and Lois was your Lois. Their daughter, Paige, and their son-in-law, Paul have become like a brother and sister to us. Julia is like a sister to Deborah.
Thank you for your generosity to us, thank you for your encouragement. We are so grateful to God for bringing us to America and to Linwood.
Naganza Nanduhura's Testimony
My name is Naganza's Nanduhura. In 1998 the war in Congo came to the town of Vyura, many people were killed, others were maimed, those that remained ran away to hide in the forest. We lost our homes and all of our property to the enemies. The war increased and so we were forced to flee to the South Kivu province, hoping to find peace when we arrived there. We walked many days to reach South Kivu province; we went many days without food or water. We had to carry our babies and children 180 kilometers (about 111 miles). It was unsafe. In order to reach South Kivu Province, we had to pass around a large lake (Lake Tanganyika) while the enemy was hunting us down. Many of us were shot at and many of us died. God sent some help from people from surrounding countries, and boats took us across the large lake. When we reached South Kivu Province, we were resettled in a camp for displaced persons because the war continued.
We eventually fled South Kivu Province because it was very dangerous for Banyamulenge Tutsi, My family became separated when we were running for our lives, and I did not know what happened to my husband for a very long time. (Muhire, Naganza's husband, along with the other men sent the women and children across Lake Tanganyika by boat, then they had to flee by foot. It took many days to travel the 500 kilometers to get across the border into Burundi, all the while, they were hiding by day and running by night. They finally reached Gatumba after the massacre had occurred. Muhire found out that three of his children were still alive and being kept at a primary school in Burundi. He was told his wife was in critical condition and in the hospital)
Our five children were with me when we found refuge in the UNHCR Gatumba Refugee Camp in Burundi, just across the border from Congo. It was in 2004, at 10:00 p.m. that the enemy encircled the camp and broke through the walls, started fires, and began shooting and slaughtering us. Two of my daughters were practicing with our church's choir when the shooting started; one of my daughters came and found me in our tent where I was with our son, and our youngest child who was wrapped in a blanket upon my back. My other daughter had run away from the shooting with her cousin, Pastor Sebanyana's son. After awhile, the shooting stopped. Then my pastor's wife called to me from the other side of our tent and told me my daughter had been shot in the leg, I could not go to where she was because of the shooting. The enemies came hard again with gas, machete, and guns; killing people. A moment passed and a man came near our tent asking if anyone was still alive, we thought he was someone coming to rescue us, but he was actually an enemy. Everything became very confusing, I told my daughter to run with her brother out the side entrance of our tent into the area between the tents, but she ran through the main entrance, our son went through the side entrance. Then I heard shooting on the other side of the tent, it was the man. He had started shooting someone between the tents; it was my daughter who had been shot in the leg. He shot her until she was dead, I ran from the tent and found her on the ground, I lay down on top of her hoping that she was still alive, she was not. When I was lying on top of her, the man shot me in both my legs and my arm. A man was lying next to me who had been hit in the face by shrapnel; he told me to get up and try to escape. He told me that if the baby that was on my back was still alive, then I must try to escape. I tried to crawl. I crawled away from the fire in a direction away from the camp where I knew there was a dead furrow. I knew I could hide there.
When I was crawling, I found another woman who told me her son had been shot and killed too. I asked her if she could help me to carry my baby, but she said she could not because she had been shot too. We both crawled to an area in the dead furrow and stayed hidden the rest of the night until morning when people from surrounding areas came searching for survivors. When they came, they were calling out to us that it was safe because they were rescue people and they wanted to help. The rescue workers found 166-burned bodies that morning, all, but a few of the victims of the massacre were Banyamulenge Tutsi. The rescuers also found 120 of us who had been shot or maimed by the enemy's machete. They took us to a hospital in Burundi. I had six surgeries in hospital in Burundi, but they could not fix my problem and so they sent me to Rwanda where I received a seventh surgery, but I did not improve.
For one whole year I could not move, I could not turn, I could not do anything. In Africa, if your family does not stay at the hospital with you, then you are not cared for, it is different from here in America. I faced the difficult times alone; I still did not know what had happened to my husband. I had lost two of my five children (Naganza found out later when that the daughter that had run through the front entrance of the tent the night of the massacre had been shot and killed). I was in and out of consciousness for a very long time and I was severely affected by the traumatic events of the massacre. I did not have anyone to take care of me, and I was so worried about my three surviving children because I knew they were alone and too young to be in the care of the schools they had been placed in for refuge. They did not have anyone to care for them to make sure they had enough food to eat or clothes to wear; they did not have anything. My circumstances grew worse every day, and my heart was so heavy. Friends from my tribe would come to the hospital to bathe me, dress me, and turn me in my bed. Eventually my legs started to improve, but my arm remained disabled.
Finally, in 2007, we were resettled in America. One surgery was performed on me and I was told that another would restore the use of my arm, but I did not have the means. We were not near our tribe, and we could not speak English, we were alone in Missouri, but some of our family had been resettled in Sioux Falls, there was work for my husband here, our tribe was here, we could worship together here. We moved to Sioux Falls in 2008. I still cannot do anything with my arm and I cannot hold anything with my hand. I understand that American doctors have the skill and knowledge to fix my hand but I do not understand how to get the means to have the required surgery. Thank you for listening to my testimony. Thank you congregation for helping our tribe to worship together, God is good, and he is faithful.
Pastor Emmanuel's Testimony
The region of the Congo where I come from was a pastoral community known as Vyura, it is lush and green, known for its agriculture and livestock. Our tribe had lived there for many, many years, we had 10 primary schools and 6 secondary schools; they were private schools because the government would not fund them. Throughout our history, we suffered persecution and discrimination because we are Banyamulenge Tutsi, someday I want to record in a book all that happened to our tribe because it is too much to share in just the few moments I have today.
Today I want to tell you about the events of the war that broke out in August 1998 when the government deployed soldiers to circle the villages of the Vyura region with the purpose of exterminating the Banyamulenge Tutsi. At that time, we did not understand the full plan of the government. It was a Wednesday morning that the soldiers began invading the outer villages of region, capturing us and putting us into make-shift jails: women in their own jails, children in their own jails, and so on. They caught so many of us, but those who could escape ran into the forest. In the evening when they were done with the outer villages, they moved toward the inner villages. Then the massacre began of our people in the inner villages, they captured us and contained us in an area while they prepared a very large bonfire. The soldiers began slaughtering us and then they would throw the bodies into the fire--it was part of the genocide that the government had ordered for the entire Banyamulenge Tutsi in the Congo.
The government had already broadcast over the radio that anyone who looked like, spoke like, or had any Banyamulenge Tutsi in them must be killed, so we who had escaped into the forest from the outer villages knew we were in danger. We prayed to God, "O God, you are our only hope, you are our only Rescuer." Some of our family members were in the make-shift jails and we knew the soldiers would soon take them and slaughter them like they had done to the inner villages of the Vyura region. We decided that we would go back to stand with our families and prepare to die with them when the soldiers came to begin the slaughter. There were two former soldiers with us that had guns, they led the way as we walked out of the forest and toward the make-shift jails where our family members were captive. Somehow, God did a miracle and he confused all the soldiers and made them think that we were all armed, they turned-tail and ran, leaving all their ammunition behind. We took up the ammunition and headed toward the make-shift jails, we were able to free our families and flee back into the forest.
We used the ammunition and some of our own military training to protect ourselves. After some days, there were other Banyamulenge Tutsi from South Kivu province who joined us there in the forest. They began helping us to fight off the attackers who had listened to the government broadcast and were helping to carry out the genocide of the Banyamulenge Tutsi. We tried to fend off the attackers for many months until we decided we could not defend ourselves against the force of the enemy any longer; it was too much. We decided to flee to South Kivu province about 185 kilometers away (about 111 miles). We came to a military roadblock whereupon many of our tribe were slaughtered by the soldiers. We once again, had to flee, but rescuers from the surrounding area came to our aid and we eventually reached Kalima, we stayed there for awhile but planes flew over the area and began bombing and so we decided to go by boat to Uvira. We could not stay in Uvira because it was still very dangerous for the Banyamulenge so we soon crossed the border into Burundi. Some were put into the UNHCR Gatumba Refugee Camp, which you have heard of today and others went into Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi.
We are so thankful to our God for his protection of our people, but there are many of our tribe still in the Congo, or still in refugee camps who are suffering, our hearts are burdened for them. We thank you Linwood congregation for your generosity to our congregation. Thank you for listening to our testimonies today.
Pastor Sebanyana's Appreciation
We thank you Linwood congregation for organizing this worship service in order that our congregations may get to know one another. Before I express my thanks, I want to introduce to you the disabled persons in our congregation who have suffered for the many years since the Gatumba massacre. We have Cecile, my wife. She was shot in both legs, but God protected her so that she is not totally disabled, yet she cannot work. My daughter was shot too.
Nanduhura Naganza, (her testimony was heard in the Sunday School hour, her two daughters were shot and killed) was shot in her two legs and arm, her arm and hand have been left disabled from lingering damage from the wounds.
Nakirindo Janine, (her testimony was heard in the Sunday School hour) lost her husband and child, and was also wounded from a grenade and left permanently disabled. She is the mother of three young children.
We have Eric, Pastor Emmanuel's son, he was hit by a grenade when his family was fleeing the attack of the soldiers on the villages of Vyura when he was 13. He has had many surgeries on his leg, and he is now recovering at Sanford hospital from the most recent surgery performed to save his leg. We pray that God will restore him to complete health.
Narerwa lost her husband in the war in the Congo, and her daughter was Ivonne wounded when they were fleeing during the war.
Daniel was shot and wounded when his family was running away from the enemy during the war in the Congo
Isaac and Rachel have been severely affected by the trauma of seeing their son killed before their eyes in the Gatumba massacre.
Many of our people have been affected psychologically and physically and we have all shared in the history of the suffering of our tribe. When we reached America, we could not speak English and it would have been difficult to worship in English-speaking worship services. We desired to find a place where we could worship together, through a miracle, God used his servants, Pastor Bill and the Linwood congregation. We thank you for allowing this to happen. Today is a special day, it is God who planned it since a long time ago. It is not through our efforts but through his servants, Jeff and Bill and many through your congregation who organized this day whereby Linwood congregation would become like our parents. We have become like your sons. We thank you that you care about us, that you empower us spiritually, and morally. We thank the Lord for doing this. We thank the District Superintendant for coming to this service to welcome us into this district. We honor you, we say God bless you, may God help you in your duties.
Finally, we thank Linwood for loving us through Pastor Bill and for Pastor Jeff and wives for the generosity of getting the things for our needs.
I want to read Phillipians 1:3-6
I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
