At 5am on April 30, 1997, rebels attacked the minor seminary of Buta in the Diocese of Bururi and ordered those inside to separate along ethnic lines. A civil war had raged in the country since 1993, pitting the Tutsi minority against the Hutu majority. The seminary had refused to be drawn into the strife and the seminarians now rejected the rebels’ order.
Fr Nicolas Niyungeko, rector of the Sanctuary of Buta, built in the seminarians’ honour, recalled: “Their evil scheme having failed, the killers rushed on the children and slaughtered them with rifles and grenades. At that point, some of the seminarians were heard singing psalms of praise and others were saying ‘Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do’. Others, instead of fighting or trying to run away, preferred helping their distressed brothers, knowing exactly what was going to happen to them.”
