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In February 2007, the United States, through the Bureau of Population,
Refugees, and Migration at the U.S. Department of State, will begin
resettling about 600 Banyamulenge Tutsi from the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. The refugees are survivors of a brutal attack in 2004 by
Hutu extremists on unarmed Banyamulenge residents of the Gatumba
Refugee Camp in Burundi, near the Congolese border. The massacre
was the latest episode in a 10-year history of violent persecution against
the Banyamulenge Tutsi in the Congo.
The Gatumba survivors will be joining a small community of
Banyamulenge Tutsi refugees who first began arriving in the United
States in 2000. To help U.S. resettlement agency staff better understand
and thus better assist the refugee newcomers, this Backgrounder provides
basic information about the Banyamulenge Tutsi in general and
the Gatumba massacre survivors in particular.
The Banyamulenge Tutsi
Survivors of the Gatumba Refugee Camp Massacre
COR Center Refugee Backgrounder No.1
Who Are the Banyamulenge?
Before their displacement, the Banyamulenge Tutsi were pastoralists living in
the High Plateaux region of South Kivu province, in the eastern Congo. They
are devout Christians and speak Kinyamulenge, a language closely related to
Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, the national languages of Rwanda and
Burundi respectively.
Before the Congo gained independence in 1960, relations between the
Banyamulenge and their neighbors were usually peaceful, but occasionally
fraught with tension over land use. In the mid-1960s, during the Simba rebellion
that broke out in southeastern Congo, the Banyamulenge encountered war and
forced displacement for the first time, and many families were forced to flee their
homes and villages for towns such as Uvira. There, for the first time, many were
exposed to the amenities of modern life and acquired a thirst for education that
persists to this day. They were not able to return home until about 1968.
In 1994, the Rwandan genocide—in which Hutu extremists murdered nearly
1 million Tutsi in a government-organized campaign of violence—spilled over into
the Congo when Hutu perpetrators of the genocide fled across the border and
incited local Congolese to attack Tutsi. Since then there have been regular massacres
against Tutsi in the Congo.
In 1996, the Banyamulenge Tutsi rebelled against the central government,
which supported their opponents. This became the catalyst for the regional war
that ousted Congolese President Mobutu Sese Seko from power in May 1997
and installed Laurent Kabila as president.
In August 1998, a new rebellion involving Banyamulenge broke out in the
East. Banyamulenge and other Tutsi who were stranded in Kinshasa,
insi de:
2 The Need for Resettlement
in the United States
2 Cultural Attributes
of the Banyamulenge
4 The Gatumba Survivors:
Resettlement Considerations
6 Banyamulenge at a Glance
www.culturalorientation.net
COR Center Backgrounders provide key information about
new refugee groups for U.S. resettlement workers.
The contents of this Backgrounder were developed
with funding from the Bureau of Population, Refugees,
and Migration, United States Department of State.
The Cultural Orientation Resource Center (COR Center)
at the Center for Applied Linguistics works to increase
the capacity of overseas and U.S. refugee service
providers to orient refugees to their new American
communities and to inform U.S. communities about
refugee orientation and new refugee groups.
February 2007
2

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