Cishemere : a 13-year-old refugee boy killed by gunshot near military firing range

SOS Médias Burundi

Cishemere, October 25, 2026 — A 13-year-old boy from a Congolese refugee family was killed Saturday by a stray bullet while he was cooking corn at the Cishemere transit center in Bujumbura province, northwestern Burundi. Another child was injured in the explosion. The tragedy raises further concerns about the safety of asylum seekers staying at the site, which is located near a military firing range.

According to witnesses, the children were gathered around a fire to roast corn when a bullet, which was lying where they had lit the fire, exploded from the heat.

The victim was from the Luvungi area, in the Rusizi Plain, South Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. He died at the scene. The other child injured in the explosion has been taken to hospital, according to local sources.

The Cishemere transit center hosts Congolese asylum seekers awaiting transfer to refugee camps. Its proximity to a military firing range worries the occupants, who fear the risks associated with the possible presence of abandoned munitions near the site.

The firing range is used by Burundian soldiers, as well as by members of the Imbonerakure, the youth wing of the CNDD-FDD, the ruling party. These members participate in border security operations alongside they military, as well as night patrols with the police.

A refugee at the center, who requested anonymity, is calling on Burundian authorities to take urgent measures to protect asylum seekers.

“We fled the war and we shouldn’t risk dying here from stray bullets. We are asking the government to secure the area and protect our children,” he pleaded.

While Congolese refugees are leaving the Busuma site due to poor living conditions, humanitarian sources indicate that some asylum seekers hosted in Cishemere and Makombe, in the Rumonge district of southwestern Burundi, are expected to be transferred there. This prospect raises concerns about the conditions in which these people will be received in Busuma, especially since the death of a child in Cishemere highlights the risks that refugees can also face at reception sites.

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Congolese refugees and their children amidst makeshift shelters built with tarpaulins at the Cishemere transit site in northwestern Burundi, where a 13-year-old boy was killed by an abandoned bullet (SOS Médias Burundi)