OAKLAND — Dorcas Nasunika still shudders at the thought of what happened in Gatumba.
She remembers the music. Late at night on Aug. 13, 2004, residents of her refugee camp in western Burundi heard a large group of people entering
The intruders also carried machetes and automatic weapons. In a two-hour slaughter, they killed more than 150 camp residents, most of them women and children.
Nasunika survived alongside her youngest daughter, Chantal Namatungo, by dropping to the ground as the bodies fell around them. They were quiet until the attackers withdrew.
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the massacre in Gatumba. Nasunika and her family walked to the Burundian village two months earlier thinking it would be a refuge from the violence they fled in their native country, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
But the attacks targeting their ethnic community of Banyamulenge Tutsis followed them after they fled across the border. Only in spring 2007, when they moved to California, did they begin to feel safe.
"I want to inform the whole world about the genocide in Congo and Burundi," said Jean-Claude Musore, Nasunika's 21-year-old son.
Musore persuaded his reluctant mother and two sisters to begin sharing their story this month in hopes of shedding light on the genocidal violence that has caused more than 600 Banyamulenge Tutsis to resettle in the United
In her first public talk, Nasunika stood up last week before a small crowd inside the main branch of the Oakland Public Library. With the help of a Swahili interpreter, she began to tell her story, but after a few minutes she returned to her seat in tears.
Her daughter Chantal, now a 19-year-old student at Skyline High School in Oakland, helped fill in the details.
Musore said he was lucky that day, visiting a friend outside the camp when the massacre happened. It took him a week to find out his mother and sister were alive. His other sister, Ingineri Nabitanga, was living in another village at the time. The family of four and Nabitanga's husband now live together in an Oakland apartment.
The Gatumba survivors are spread across the country, with the biggest concentration — about 25 families — living in Portland, Maine, according to a report by the Cultural Orientation Resource Center, a national organization. Some of the refugees are gathering in New Hampshire this week for a memorial event.
Musore believes his family is the only one in the East Bay, although there are many other Congolese from different ethnic groups who have migrated here after previous conflicts. One Congolese immigrant who attended the library talk publicly berated the family for giving only the Tutsi side of the conflict. Nasunika, sitting in the back, put her head in her hands.
