The passing of Dr. Barampama Athanase on December 16, 2025, in Brussels is more than a personal loss; it is the silencing of a living archive of modern Burundian history. His life story is inextricably woven into the nation’s most profound traumas and resilient hopes, framed by a heritage that reaches back to the very spiritual foundations of the Burundian kingdom.
To understand the man, one must first understand the lineage from which he came. Dr. Barampama was a son of the Banyagisaka clan (muryango), a designation that carries immense historical and cosmological weight. Within the Ingoma y’Uburundi (the Kingdom of Burundi), the Banyagisaka were not merely a family but ritual specialists intrinsically linked to the Sacred Drum Karyenda. This drum was no ordinary instrument; it was the embodiment of the kingdom’s soul and a reflection of the supreme divinity (Imana). The Banyagisaka were the bearers of its pure force—the hidden energy (umushinga) that sustained the moral and spiritual order of the nation. Their role was one of sacred stewardship, connecting the earthly kingdom to the divine.
This deep history is not abstract. Dr. Barampama’s origins on the hill of Kagoma in Kayanza placed him in a landscape saturated with Ubungoma—the complex cosmology and ritual knowledge system centered on the drum. His identity was thus dual: a modern medical doctor and a scion of a lineage that once served as a pillar of the pre-colonial state. His passing is mourned acutely by the Association of Members of the Muryango of the Banyagisaka of Burundi (AIBU), for it represents the loss of a living link to this foundational heritage.
His personal journey was marked by two cataclysmic events that shattered Burundi’s 20th century. The first was the genocide against the Hutu of Burundi in 1972, a state-sponsored massacre that effectively ended the monarchical system (Ingoma) and its ideal of unity (Ubumu). As a young man in October 1972, Dr. Barampama was forced into exile, finding precarious shelter in the Rilima refugee camp in Rwanda. This experience of being violently severed from his homeland and his heritage’s symbolic center was his first survival.
Returning to Burundi in 1992, inspired by the democratic promise of the Ndadaye phenomenon, he was soon engulfed by the second catastrophe: the Burundian Civil War (1993–2003). The assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye in 1993 plunged the nation into a decade of brutal conflict. Between 1994 and 1996, Dr. Barampama, practicing his medical profession, once again narrowly escaped death. Forced into a second exile, he found refuge in Belgium. Twice driven from his homeland, he was twice a survivor. This pattern defined a generation, but his response to it defined the man.
In the diaspora, his activism took a uniquely practical form. Politically engaged, he was part of the “Burundian resistance for the defense of democracy.” Yet, his most poignant contributions came through his medical expertise. He collaborated with other Burundian medical professionals abroad to organize humanitarian actions, channeling vital medicines and equipment back into the war-torn country. This was resistance not just through rhetoric, but through healing—a modern manifestation of the caretaking role embedded in his Banyagisaka lineage.
After the war, the hope for lasting peace post-2005 allowed him to reconnect with his country. In a powerful act of civic duty and memory, in June 2023, he provided solemn testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CVR). He spoke as a survivor of the 1972 genocide, recounting the horrors he witnessed at the Musenyi Pedagogical Middle School in Ngozi, where teachers and students were arrested and killed. His testimony was a crucial act of preserving a historical record that many have sought to erase, transforming personal trauma into a national lesson.
Dr. Barampama Athanase’s life was a tapestry of intersecting identities: the ritual lineage holder, the refugee, the medical doctor, the diaspora activist, and the truth-teller. In the Banyaruguru tradition, it is believed that at death, the iroho (soul) returns to Imana, while the umwuka (spirit) joins the community of blessed ancestors. His spirit now takes its place among the ancestors of the Banyagisaka, from the legendary Twarereye, son of King Ntare Rugamba, to more recent figures like Baranshakaje Antime of Gishora.
To his wife Victoire, his children, and his entire family, we offer not just condolences, but recognition. They are the inheritors of a legacy that spans the sacred history of the drum and the painful, resilient history of modern Burundi. Dr. Barampama Athanase carried that weight with dignity. May he find peace with the ancestors, and may his family find strength in the profound and complex legacy he leaves behind.
MAY IMANA RECEIVE HIM, AND MAY HIS STORY CONTINUE TO INSTRUCT THE LIVING.
Sources : Nahimana P., http://burundi-agnews.org, Tuesday, December 16, 2025. This article expands upon an original report to provide deeper historical and cultural context.