On 26 October 1996, units of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (APR) and the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL) killed around 600 refugees who were fleeing along the routes between Nyantende and Walungu-Centre and Nyantende and Bukavu. Most of the victims came from the Uvira territory and the Ruzizi Plain. They were shot, killed by blows from bayonets or hit by shrapnel.
The soldiers set fire to most of the sites where refugees were located. Most of the victims were women, children and the elderly. According to the witness statements gathered, the soldiers killed 600 people. The bodies of the victims were buried at the scene by the local people.
These attacks had started in Uvira from 22 October 1996 onwards, when AFDL and APR launched attacks on the camps to the south and west of Bukavu city. Hutu refugees, fleeing towards Bukavu in the face of the advancing troops of AFDL and APR had set temporal camps, the Nyangezi and Nyantende camps, in South Kivu en route to Bukavu, towards the Kashusha, INERA and ADI-Kivu camps (north of Bukavu) and the Chimanga camp (west of Bukavu in the direction of Shabunda).
CADDHOM, “Les atrocités commises en province du Kivu 1996-1998”, p.5;
Palermo-Bukavu Solidarity Committee, “Les morts de la libération”, June 1997, pp.5–6.