Gedeon Shikiro nursed his massacred community members as they died in his arms at a United Nations refugee camp in Burundi. Nearly 20 years later, he is still fighting for justice.

Key points:

  • Australia’s Banyamulenge community has gathered in Albury-Wodonga to commemorate a 2004 massacre

  • An Albury resident survived the massacre but is haunted by a lack of justice for those killed

  • The wider Banyamulenge community is frustrated after a criminal investigation was suspended

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    On the night of August 13, 2004, he watched from his tent as just metres away people he knew were shot to death and burnt alive in the United Nations’ Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi, east Africa, where he was living at the time.

    His local priest told everyone to pray and prepare for death as the National Forces of Liberation (FNL), a Hutu rebel movement, moved through the camp targeting mostly Banyamulenge refugees.

    Mr Shikiro is a strikingly tall and gently spoken Congolese-Banyamulenge man, who after more than a decade living in refugee camps now calls Albury in regional New South Wales home.

    He cannot look at photos or videos of the camp, and the trauma has made it too difficult to share his testimony at a local commemoration service in NSW on Saturday.

    For Mr Shikiro, his Christian faith and prayer help comfort him, but it is the battle for justice that propels him on from the horror of the past.

    “We are still pushing to see how we can get justice for our people who have been [victims of] genocide,”  said the president of the Banyamulenge community in Australia, Moise Nzovu Riukundo.