They have lived through some of the darkest situations in recent history: massacres, wars and persecution.
On Sunday, a group of refugees, many of them African and now settled in the Denver area, met at Washington Park, where they danced and sang in the summer heat, far removed from their troubled pasts.
The event was put on by the African Community Center, a Denver organization that works with the U.S. State Department to help refugees settle here.
The gathering helped the refugees integrate into Denver culture, learn about the upcoming Independence Day holiday, and celebrate their heritages.
“They’ve gone through some intense things. They can’t even imagine what it would be like to speak out against the government,” said organizer Kevin Mohatt. “Having that is the true meaning of independence.”
Each of the refugees at the park had his or her own tragic story of loss and survival.
Among them was Congolese refugee Felix Munyabugingo.
His eyes were bright and lively despite the horrors and squalor he’s seen in just the past three years.
“It’s hard to forget about what happened in Gatumba,” he said Sunday, speaking in Swahili through translator Jamal Ali, himself a refugee who now works for the center. “The memory is set into my mind.”
Munyabugingo is a survivor of what is known as the Gatumba Massacre, an ethnic slaughter of more than 100 people in the small African country of Burundi.
Gatumba was a refugee camp occupied by thousands of people from the Republic of Congo who fled political strife there.
On the night of Aug. 13, 2004, a group of armed militants raided the camp and set its tents ablaze.
Estimates put the number dead between 100 and 170. Many were sleeping when the attack occured.
Munyabugingo said his three brothers and his sister were among those killed.
He and other family members fled into the surrounding jungle and later made their way to an urban refugee camp elsewhere in the country.
There, they stayed until they were cleared to come to the U.S. He arrived in Denver in April.
Munyabugingo, the orphans of his siblings and people he knew from the refugee camps are now living in the Denver area, where they are learning English and either going to school or looking for work.
“Celebrate this event. That is my goal,” he said Sunday. “Not even think about Gatumba.”
Staff writer Nick Martin can be reached at 303-954-1698 or nmartin@denverpost.com.
