Burundian Civil War

Burundi · 1993–2005

“The keepers of the atlas wrote this one down so the fire would not forget it.”

Melchior Ndadaye held office for one hundred and two days — Burundi's first elected Hutu president, killed by Tutsi soldiers in October 1993. His death lit a war that the hill country fed for twelve years, fear answering fear, massacre answering massacre.

Jelikan · Ìtàn · A story is told at night

Sit by the fire.
The griot remembers.

244 tellings from the African Conflict Atlas, every one carried in the griot's own voice — empires and uprisings, taxes and stools, gold roads and broken promises. Told the way a griot tells them: by voice, by lesson, by question.

“A story, a story!”

32 fires burn through the year →

Choose a thread

What shall the fire hear tonight?

Tonight

All time

1200 CEToday

— and the circle answers: “Let it come, let it go.”

Sit by the fire.The griot remembers.

What shall the fire hear tonight?

Sit by the fire.
The griot remembers.