Burundi: Families of Burundian soldiers killed in fighting with the M23 prevented from mourning

Burundi: Families of Burundian soldiers killed in fighting with the M23 prevented from mourning

In Burundi, several families have lost members, elements of the FDNB (Burundi National Defense Force) who are fighting alongside the FARDC, the Congolese army and its allies against the M23. They say they were prevented from mourning. SOS Médias Burundi visited families in Cibitoke province in the northwest of the country.

INFO SOS Médias Burundi

The families who agreed to speak to SOS Médias Burundi are from the commune of Mugina, Mabayi, Bukinanyana and Buganda. According to their testimony, it has been more than a week since they learned of the death of their members.

“But the political and military authorities prevented us from mourning,” our sources reveal.

In the commune of Bukinanyana, for example, SOS Médias Burundi has listed four families whose members have died in eastern DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) in recent weeks. They live in Mikoni, Myavye, Sehe and Bumba localities.

“It was in the middle of last week that most families learned of the death of their children,” said a relative of a bereaved family.

“The high command of the Burundian army provides very little information on the death of soldiers from our region,” he added.

Some families have been informed that their children died in road accidents, we learned. However, military sources have even recognized the battalions to which the deceased belonged.

“They were assigned to the 110th, 112th, 41st and 212th infantry battalions.”

A mother from the town of Mikoni testifies: “my son died in the fighting in Congo. He was getting ready to celebrate his wedding”.

“In total”, according to the families concerned, “12 soldiers from the aforementioned communes have died in the fighting with the M23 in recent times”.

Some soldiers were trained in the Mudubugu facility in the province of Bubanza (western Burundi) before being deployed in the DRC. They were able to go “to say goodbye to their parents”, without the knowledge of the military hierarchy.

Request of the families

The families of the Burundian soldiers who died while engaging with the M23, ask the Burundian authorities to “inform us”.

“We don’t know if their bodies have been repatriated or not. In addition, we have not been allowed to mourn, much less bury our children,” laments a father whose son was killed in fighting with the M23 during the month of January.

In Buganda commune, a relative of a soldier who died in Congo on January 19, says the person concerned was urgently called to join his unit in the DRC while he was on leave.

“He had participated in the African Union mission in Somalia twice,” he says.

And he adds, with tears in his eyes: “it’s as if he felt he would perish in Congo. When we called him, he was very discouraged and begged us to pray for him.”

His family, outraged, asks the hierarchy of the Burundian army to “at least show us his body so that we can bury him with dignity”.

“The military high command was clear: no mourning”, testified a cousin of this soldier.

A military source who requested anonymity told SOS Médias Burundi that “most of the bodies could not be recovered following the intensification of the fighting”.

The case of Cibitoke is not isolated. Several other families in the different provinces of the small nation of East Africa are going through the same situation. In Congo, the Burundian army is accompanied by members of the youth league of the CNDD-FDD, the ruling party – the Imbonerakure, described as a militia by the UN. They suffer the same fate. During the month of January, SOS Médias Burundi learned of three of them who were killed in Congo recently. They are also from the province of Cibitoke.

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Burundian military officers carry the portrait and a cross at the Mpanda cemetery in western Burundi before the burial of Major Ernest Gashirahamwe, the highest-ranking FDNB officer killed in North Kivu, on November 16, 2023 (SOS Médias Burundi)

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