1. I am the only survivor of my family. I was only 19 years old when the genocide took place. My parents, three sisters and two brothers were killed in Gitarama on the 14th April.
When the killing began, my family escaped in many different directions. My two brothers and younger sister, then aged 14, escaped to Butare. Along the way my other sister and I separated from my brothers, managing to hide in a trench.
On 16th April we were discovered by some local villagers, who had joined with the interahamwe. We pleaded with them to leave us alone. We were extremely lucky, because they did just that. At around 2.00pm, still on the 16th, we naively believed that the situation must have improved. We came out of the trenches.
The killers mocked us saying: “Aha, it is the girls. Let’s go and ‘liberate’ them. We must give them something to celebrate.” They took us and another girl who was carrying a baby, to a nearby hill. We passed a roadblock where we saw that people were being killed. Right in front of us people were forced to squat on the floor and were then macheted or killed with a masu. A big truck was on standby where the bodies were piled on and taken away.
When they were tired of killing, the men came to us and ordered us to take off our clothes. They each in turn raped us. One man pleaded with the others to leave my 14 years old sister alone, saying she was only a kid. The other men laughed and said, that we were all going to be killed anyway. That we would have to chose between rape or a cruel death. They raped my 14yearold sister. I stopped feeling my pain. I wanted to protect her, but I couldn’t. After raping us they gave us food to eat by the roadside.
Many people were being captured by villagers and brought to the roadblock. Soon there were so many women kept aside for rape. This went on two weeks. My sister and I met many women, some were raped and killed, others were macheted and lay in agony for days before eventually dying. Others were piled on lorries with the dead, even though they were still breathing.
A man called Marcel, who was our neighbour and had a reputation as a killer, came to the roadblock and recognised me. I begged him to save my sister and I. He told the interahamwe who were keeping us that I was his spoil and they let him take me. But I had to leave my sister behind. I was distraught.
Marcel accused me of forcing myself on him. Saying that I was a whore that deserved what I got. He took me to his home and raped me every day. His mother was left to guard me whenever he went out so that I would not escape. She was a nice woman. I asked whether she had any daughters of her own. She felt sorry for me. She would clean me up, and treat my injuries. She said that if I become a good wife to her son, she would make sure he never hurts me again. I told her I was sad because I had left my younger sister at a roadblock, and feared I had betrayed her.
When my captor finally returned home after two weeks away, he told that he had a surprise for me. I thought he was going to kill me. Instead he had brought my sister with him. His mother had pleaded with him to save my sister. I couldn’t believe he could be that kind. I was eternally grateful to him for saving my sister. But Marcel had a plan. He got one of his relatives to take my sister as his wife.
By mid June, there were few Tutsis left to massacre, and the killers got more and more agitated. They went from village to village to hunt any surviving snakes. Word got around that Marcel was keeping Tutsi spoils. The local leader ordered a search. I managed to sneak out of the house in time with the help of my motherinlaw, but my sister wasn’t so lucky. She was killed. I was so distraught by the news of my sister’s death, that I handed myself over to interahamwe to be killed.
Instead of killing me, another interahamwe took me to a disused house and raped me. He showed me his grenades and bullets and asked me to choose which death I would prefer. I picked up a grenade and threw it on the ground hoping it would blow me up, but it didn’t explode. He then called in his friends to punish me. They gang raped me. This went on for five days. I was left torn and bleeding. I don’t know how I sustained the abuse. After a time I finally passed out. When I awoke, the place was silent.
I ventured out of the house, hoping someone would kill me, or even rape me until I would die. I was filth, covered in blood, smelling. I looked like a walking dead. I kept walking calling for the killers to come and get me. By that time, I didn’t realise the Rwandan Patriotic Army had liberated the area. Soldiers dressed in uniform came towards me. I was throwing insults at then, demanding that they kill me. Instead they calmed me down and took me to a make shift clinic for treatment.
I have since found out that I am HIV positive. But I don’t want to talk about it.
2. In 1994, I was a nineteen year old student with high aspirations. Myself and two of my cousins, aged nineteen and seventeen, were abducted by the killers and kept for a week at the roadblock where, we were raped by anyone who felt like it. Each day we were raped in full view of everyone. At night we were locked in a house near the checkpoint. We attempted suicide by hanging ourselves but we did not succeed.
We managed to escape from the house, but ran into another group of interahamwe who told us that we had to choose to be their wives or face death. My nineteen year old cousin said that we wanted them to kill us, but they refused. Instead they shared us out amongst themselves and took us to their houses to be their wives. I kept in touch with my cousins through my captor but we were never allowed to see each other. We stayed with these men until we were rescued. I feel guilty for putting up with the rape and not resisting. I have nightmares of the attacks at the checkpoint and have difficulty in establishing or maintaining relationships.
Worse still, I have to bring up the child of my tormentor. The genocide, for me continues, as I can never forget my experiences whilst bringing up this child of bad memories.
3. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was sometime in April 1994. When attackers came to our home, I ran away to a hill to hide in the forest. There were many people seeking refuge there. The killers came with reinforcements. They arrived in large numbers, surrounded us, then herded us into a compound. They selected the women they wanted, and took us back to the forest to rape us.
The killers selected the older women first, raped them and killed them. I was only 18 years old. They separated me, and friends of my age, from the others, and sold us to another group of killers. They would bid against each other, and the one who paid the most would win the right to have you.
A killer paid 1,000 Rwandese Francs to have me. He kept me for two weeks and raped me every day. When he was tired of me he sold me again for 1,000 Rwandese Francs to another killer. I knew all of these men. They were our neighbours. The second man also kept me for two weeks then sold me for 500 Rwandese Francs to a killer who had been nicknamed ‘the butcher’. I knew he was going to kill me. By this time, I was so tired with my circumstances that I wanted nothing better than a quick death.
The butcher took me to a house where he was keeping other women. There we were about 20 in all. I didn’t know any of these women. He raped us and would bring some his friend’s home to rape us too. They would drink and then they would rape us in turns. Different men came every night. The butcher did not rape us, but he enjoyed seeing these men rape us. We must have been kept there for weeks. Sometimes we passed out and did not even know what day it was.
One night a killer known as Aaron visited the house, I knew him well, he recognised me. He asked that I be given to him for a wife. I was then passed on again to Aaron. He was also a prominent killer. He stayed at home. People were picked and brought to his house for him to kill with his machete.
I could not take any more. I planned an escape with other girls. At 1:00am I pretended to go to toilet and just disappeared, I met up with the other girls and we ran all night until we arrived at Rwamagana centre. We were finally rescued. I still have nightmares each night about what happened.
I was lucky not to get pregnant but I have AIDS. It is difficult to think positively about life.
4. I was 11 years when the genocide happened.
It was the 7 th April 1994, early morning, when news broke that the President of Rwanda had been killed in a plane crash.
My father woke us up and told us the news. We (Tutsis) were going to die too. My mother had broken her leg, and she couldn’t walk. After an hour we heard people singing, “We should massacre them!” Mother told us to go and that she would stay behind. We begged her to come with us, but she refused; so we left. However, I hid near home where I would be able to still see her.
After a few minutes, I saw people with headgear made of leaves carrying clubs. Some entered the house, while others attacked my mother. I watched what took place. I started crying. It was raining hard during this time, and there were wails, moans, and screams everywhere, with homes burning. It was a scene from hell.
I spent the whole day in the bush, hidden, without food or water. The killers found me, because they were using dogs to hunt people down. They had with them other people, whom they had captured. It was morning and we were all made to sit down in a field, as more people were brought. Then using machetes, they started the killing.
The men were killed first. I was kept alive with other women and children. I knew what I had witnessed, but my mind refused to believe it. I had no more feelings. I was just in a nightmare that refused to go away. It came to a point where I had no desire to live.
I was fortunate. I managed to escape and was found by the liberating army.
It is now 14 years since the genocide, but to me, it is just like yesterday. What happened, happened within such a short time, but it was long enough for the killers to enact a genocide in which over a million people were killed. Those who survived have nothing to forward to. We live in the shadow of the genocide. Many of us are scarred for life physically, mentally and psychologically. And if that is not enough, many of those who survived were infected with the HIV virus through rape.
5. Recently married and living in Kigali with my husband, then aged 21, I was two months pregnant on 7 April 1994. That morning, in the immediate aftermath of the plane crash of President Habyarimana, soldiers searched my neighbourhood. When a group of six soldiers reached my house they demanded identity cards. And then despite the presence of my husband and their neighbours they instantly began to rape me. I lost consciousness after the first rape.
After a night in hiding, my husband and I returned home, believing calm would be restored with the appointment of a new interim president. But we were invaded, this time by the interahamwe.
They made my husband leave the house, and one of them injured me between the legs with his sword, while he was telling me to spread them. The other one also hit me with the back of his gun, and told me to take my clothes off. That day three interahamwe raped me. Others took my husband away, I don’t know where, and I’ve still not seen him to this day.
I tried to hide in the abandoned homes of my neighbours, but I was soon found and again I was raped.
During one night, an interahamwe came to the house I was hiding in. He tapped on the door, but I didn’t let him in. He broke the glass pane in the window of the bedroom that I was in. When he lit his torch, he saw me. He told me to open up, or he would open fire inside. When he came in, he said that I should make a choice, between death or doing exactly what he wanted me to do. I would have preferred to die, but he refused to kill me. He threw me on the bed and then raped me. Afterwards, he used his sword, still in its sheath, to torture me even further.
I have had no opportunity to pursue justice. Most of the men who raped me were soldiers and I didn’t recognize them, while the militiaman, who I knew, left for the Congo and has not returned.
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