Zambir Genocide

The Zambir genocide was the genocidal mass murder of the Zambir people in Kamburi over a 19 year period between 1961 and 1980. Considered to be most deadly during the 1970's Kamburi War, it was often perpetrated by the militaristic, dictatorial Mosi governments, led by Mudaqi Mosi (1960-1975) and his nephew Bosede Mosi (1975-1980), both ethnic Kamburian men.

With the first tribal murders occurring on the orders of Mudaqi during the Winter of 1961 to 1962, it boiled into chaos over the ensuring years, before drawing back following the defeat in the Manda conflict. However, after recapturing the portion of Manda that laid south of the Chari river during the 2nd Sarh War, the mass murder began to flame out again.

Portrayed as unruly and unpatriotic, Bosede Mosi sanctioned the government to kill Zambir people if they were suspected to be traitors. The final phase of the genocide begun in the Winter of 1975 when the first work camps were built. Housing thousands of relocated Zambir people, it forced them to work to death, helping the Kamburi government produce weapons during the Kamburi War. It reached its climax during the final days of the physical conflict with Chad, with almost all Zambir people in the camps put to death by firing squad before the French government found out.

Following the conflict, the camps were shut down to avoid suspicion by international powers and a U.N intervention, but when Bosede fell from power following a military coup in 1980, the government brought all details of the genocide to the world. Calling for a manhunt of all leaders of the genocide, the U.N sent French troops into the country to find its former leader. Bosede, along with his most loyal followers, fled to Cameroon to avoid capture, but in 1982, he was finally caught, tried for war crimes by an international court with many of his top generals, and shipped back to his home country. The military junta government, now led by Kwasi Melisizwe, tried him under Kamburi laws, and sentenced him to death by the Ebele Machine; the Kamburi equivalent to the guillotine.