A mother, a life, a bullet : anger after the death of a pregnant Congolese woman at the border

SOS Médias Burundi

Bujumbura, September 3, 2025 – She was carrying life. She was transporting fuel. She died from bullets.
On the night of September 2-3, on the border village of Nyamitanga, in the Ndava zone, Bukinanyana district, Bujumbura province (western Burundi), a pregnant Congolese trader was shot dead by a Burundian soldier as she crossed the Rusizi River, which separates the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, carrying a few cans of fuel – a trade for survival that became a death sentence.

This tragedy, which occurred in a region plagued by poverty and suffocated by a fuel shortage for 57 months, shocked the local community. It raises a burning question : in a state in crisis, how far will indifference to human life go?

A deadly crossing

According to several witnesses and local authorities, the victim, a well-known trader in the region, was attempting to cross the Rusizi River with a load of ten fuel cans, intended for resale in Burundi. The pregnant woman was reportedly riddled with bullets by a Burundian soldier on a border surveillance mission. She died on the spot, without having time to seek help.

Heavy gunfire was heard during the night, sowing panic among residents. The tragedy was only discovered in the morning. Her body was transported to the morgue of the private hospital in Gasenyi, in the same region, by local authorities, in the presence of members of the security forces.

An explosive context

This tragedy occurs amid an acute fuel shortage that has been affecting Burundi for the past 57 months. Faced with the lack of fuel at petrol stations, many residents of the Rusizi Plain regularly cross the border into the DRC to obtain fuel informally. This situation creates a climate of tension between civilians and security forces, already on high alert in this sensitive area.

“It is incomprehensible that a pregnant woman, who was simply trying to feed her family, should be shot like a criminal,” complained a Nyamitanga resident.

Justice awaited

For now, the victim’s full identity has not yet been officially confirmed, although residents maintain that she was known in the region for her cross-border trade.

The population of Nyamitanga, still in shock, is demanding an independent investigation and that the soldier responsible be brought before a military court. Several voices are also calling on the Burundian authorities to rethink how security forces supervise border activities.

Administration and security authorities, contacted several times, have so far chosen not to comment on this disturbing case, thus fueling the concern and frustration of the local population.

“This woman was neither armed nor dangerous. She didn’t cross the border to attack, but to survive,” laments another witness.

Another tragedy at forgotten borders

This murder once again highlights the precarious situation of small cross-border traders, often caught between economic necessity, the lack of legal channels for trade, and state violence. The border between the DRC and Burundi, far from being a simple crossing point, has become a place of constant tension, where poverty rubs shoulders with fear.

Beyond the numbers, the borders, and the shipments of jerry cans, a life has been cut short. A mother-to-be, who left to find a way to support her family, never returned. Her name, her face, her story join those of many invisible women who pay with their lives for the crises others provoke.

In the villages of Nyamitanga, the silence is heavy, but anger is brewing. The population is not demanding revenge, but justice. A justice that recognizes that poverty should never be a crime, and that weapons must never respond to human distress.

For as long as such tragedies are possible, the border will not be just a line on a map. It will remain a line of fire between survival and oblivion.