The 1972 mass killings in Burundi

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

In late April 1972, Hutu rebels launched an insurgency in the south of Burundi with the aim of overthrowing the Tutsi led government. They brutally murdered government officials and civilians, targeting mostly Tutsi. Estimates from the time suggest at least a thousand people were killed. The army quickly contained the insurgency but then began reprisals against Hutu civilians. Hutu elites in particular were targeted – those with education or with government jobs. The killing lasted for more than 3 months. Human Rights Watch estimates as many as 200,000 were killed. Rob Walker speaks to Jeanine Ntihirageza who was an 11-year-old schoolgirl at the time and whose father went missing at the start of the reprisals.

(Photo: National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation officials inspect remains of people at a mass grave existing from 1972 in Mwaro, Burundi. Credit: Renovat Ndabashinze/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	Hello and thanks for downloading the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:45.8	I'm Rob Walker. Today we're going back 50 years to 1972,
0:50.9	at a time when the small Central African state of Burundi was experiencing violence on a truly terrifying scale.
0:58.0	And you would hear names of people who disappeared in the marketplace, in the school, in the
1:06.2	church.
1:07.2	You can see Lorries going three, four, five Lorries with 30-40 bodies in each one.
1:14.0	They were collected by soldiers and then they were locked in a room and they were short.
1:19.7	In 1972 Burundi was ruled by a military government and power was concentrated in the hands of a small group drawn from the Tutsi ethnic group.
1:28.0	The Tutsia minority made up somewhere around 14% of the population and Hutu around 85% similar proportions to
1:36.2	neighboring Rwanda. There were deep political tensions not just over the fact that
1:41.0	Hutu were largely excluded from power, but fierce competition
1:44.7	too within Tutsi political circles.
1:47.7	On the surface though, there was no sign of the scale of what was to come.
1:52.0	So in 1972 I was 11 years old.
1:55.0	My family had a comfortable life.
1:59.0	My father was a businessman.
	...

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