Daily Archives: August 19, 2015

She Survived the Bullets and Flames of Gatumba

Espy“It’s midnight- I can’t sleep! I can’t think, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. August 13, 2004. What a horrific night. I can’t take the image out of my mind. It’s so hard to believe that our families, our very own people were burned alive and no justice has been served! I can’t take it, I just can’t understand! Lets’ all be strong.”

“Espy,” Esperance Mfurakazi Nasezerano, was venting her fear and anxiety onFacebook. What happened to her on that night in 2004? She was eleven years old and living in a tent at a United Nations refugee camp in Gatumba, Burundi when Front National de Liberation (FNL) rebels, with Mai-Mai, Interahamwe perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, and soldiers from the regular Congolese army entered the camp. Death was in their eyes and evil had taken over their souls.

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