On August 13, 2006, at a U.N. refugee camp near Gatumba, Burundi, the Forces Nationales de Libération, a Hutu supremacy rebel group, attacked the Banyamulenge community, a Congolese Tutsi ethnic group who had fled violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. One hundred sixty-six people were massacred and about another 100 injured.

Professor Chris Davey would ensure that such a terrible event would not be forgotten to history.

With the support of the Gatumba Refuge Survivors Foundation and participating survivors, Davey, in collaboration with the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, created the Gatumba Survivors Project, an archive that includes transcripts and audio recordings from survivor interviews, a background essay, and other resources detailing the tragedy. (Davey, a research scholar with the Strassler Center whose visiting professorship at Strassler was funded by Charles Scheidt, currently works at Binghamton University’s Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention.)

Clark student Keasha Buchana ’25 joined the Gatumba Survivors Project team after hearing a survivor tell their story during a panel discussion organized by Project members in June 2023. Compelled to help preserve the stories and culture of Gatumba survivors, the international development and social change and economics major spent six months researching and archiving the atrocity and its aftermath.

“My job here is to simply be a vessel to allow them to share themselves,” Buchana says. “For some, this is deeper than we think or will ever understand.” She conducted research as the Doris N. Tager intern; her summer internship was funded by Jonathan Edelman ’16.

Buchana, who is from Rwanda, recalls feeling particular empathy for the Gatumba survivors because of her own country’s history with ethnic division and violence. She often cultivated relationships by communicating in Kinyarwanda and Kinyamulenge, the two common languages among Gatumba survivors.

“If someone is speaking your native language, it helps you feel comfortable and [allows the survivors] to articulate themselves,” says Buchana, who describes the interviews as “authentic,” “raw,” and “not influenced by any external forces.”

Although Buchana had taken classes about African war, genocide, and international development, it was working on this project that revealed to her the multi-layered emotions tied to the massacre. In the Gatumba Project interviews, many survivors talked about being displaced by Banyamulenge-targeted violence and experiencing hostility because of their ethnicity. With special concern for the identity, history, and culture of the survivors, Buchana ensured that her interviews were conversational in both structure and tone, and encompassed the fullness of their lives well beyond the violent episodes they endured.

Buchana says there is not enough up-to-date research being done on the massacre which can result in misinformation. She recommends that anyone conducting research on the Gatumba Massacre expose themselves to multiple accounts of the event, just as the Gatumba Project does.

Buchana’s biggest takeaway from the Project came from observing the resilience, tenacity, and hopefulness the survivors displayed when sharing their testimonies. A handful of them “still hope for justice,” something she hopes the Gatumba Project can help them achieve. “These are small and invisible steps, but in the end, they could lead to something bigger,” she says. “Justice means a lot to these people.”