After the massacres of 1972, thousands of Burundian Hutu fled to Rwanda — only to discover that shared ethnicity couldn't erase the border between them and their hosts. Among the exiles was a young man named Melchior Ndadaye.
In 1959, tens of thousands of Rwandan Tutsi fled to Burundi, where they found refuge but never quite a homeland. Shut out, marginalised, they turned to work and to culture — until return seemed possible only by force of arms. This is where the RPF generation was forged.
In the Great Lakes region, crises rarely remain contained within national borders. Wars, rebellions, exile, alliances and rivalries flow from one country to another like communicating vessels. The serious diplomatic
