On 22 November 1996, units of the RPF-Inkotanyi killed between 800 and 1000 of Hutu refugees in and around Chimanga refugee camp, seventy-one kilometres west of Bukavu.
When the RPF and AFDL rebels reached Chimanga camp, several hundred refugees, tired of fleeing or physically unable to follow others in the mountains, waited for their fate in fear. The first group of soldiers approaches the camp, asked the refugees to assemble for a meeting and reassured the refugees. They say they came to distribute food. Lists were drawn up, men were separated from women and children, and the military went back for allegedly fetching food. The soldiers first stabbed the children in the sheetings, before going to kill their parents with bullets. At a given moment, a whistle sounded and the soldiers positioned all around the camp opened fire on the refugees. More than 600 corpses were counted by the local Red Cross.
A priest from the Catholic parish of Burhale who was in the company of Father Jean Claude Buhendwa, killed during the massacre for trying to intervene between a group of wounded refugee children that RPF soldiers were in the process of killing with bayonets, claimed that more than 2000 people were killed that day.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights report “Mapping Report”, a thousand refugees were killed on that day and following days while fleeing. More thousands of Hutu refugees were wounded.
Those who managed to run away were pursued and killed in Chimanga village and beyond.