April 7, 1994, marked the start of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. I was there. Initially naive, I eventually pieced everything together, especially when my parents were gone, leaving my 14-year-old sister and me on our own. For survivors, this horrific event remains vivid decades later.
At first, I couldn’t understand why we, the Tutsis, 14% of the Rwandan population, were being targeted and murdered by the Hutu majority (85%). It made no sense when my mother desperately packed a few belongings and bundled us children in layers of clothing, while our Hutu neighbors, not yet turned into killers, remained safe. I saw smoke rising from Tutsi houses burning on the hill across from our home. Soon my 10-year-old mind understood: I was Tutsi, and being Tutsi was a problem. It was now a crime punishable by death, while being Hutu granted a free pass to life.
When the bloodshed spread to my hometown of Butare, my family and other Tutsis were directed by the bourgmestre (mayor) to seek refuge at the soccer field and a fenced brick compound located at the commune office. A commune was a government administrative entity, similar in size to a US county, and was headed by a bourgmestre, or mayor. The commune office was the equivalent of a US county or city hall. Hundreds of us gathered at these locations, unaware of the danger that lay ahead.
A few hours after we arrived at the mayor’s office, a group of pro-government militiamen, soldiers, and police in uniform stormed the brick compound where we were sheltering. They began slaughtering the crowd, mostly women and children, with machetes, axes and clubs. My father and other Tutsi men had already been killed before we reached the mayor’s office, since men were targeted first.
As the militia invaded, they arrived in cargo trucks with metal racks, chanting “Exterminate the Tutsis!” I was inside the fenced brick compound at the commune office with my mother and three sisters. Sensing the danger, my mother pushed me deeper into the dense, panicked crowd of women, likely to shield me from the horrific scenes unfolding at the entrance, where the militia had already begun attacking those nearest to them. Eventually, it was my turn, and the militia struck me hard on the back of my shoulder with a heavy object. I fell down as the taller women in front of me collapsed on top of me, leaving me buried and presumed dead among the piles of bodies.
I later learned the militia saved their bullets, seeing no need to waste them on the non-resisting women and children, and instead reserved them for the few remaining Tutsi men who put up resistance elsewhere.
I lay buried under the bodies throughout the night, drifting in and out of consciousness. The militia had started killing around 3 or 4 pm on April 26th, 1994, an otherwise ordinary, sunny spring day. As the morning of the next day approached, it was still half dark. Tucked between those corpses, I heard a small voice whispering my name. It was my sister, softly calling out the names of my siblings and myself, checking to see if anyone was still alive. I could see her left arm holding her neck, which was nearly severed from a blow by a machete or other sharp weapon. She was the only living person among the hundreds of lifeless bodies sprawled across the floor as far as I could see. Everything else was silence and the heavy smell of fresh, clotting blood.
Miraculously, she had survived. She asked me in Kinyarwanda, “Uracyariho?”, which means “Are you still alive?” I nodded, and she said, “Tugende” (Let’s go). She then pulled me from the pile of corpses, helping me escape with her through a broken back window before the killers returned. She knew the Hutus would come back as soon as daylight came to finish off any surviving Tutsi and dispose of the bodies.
During that harrowing time, my sister told me I had to pose as a girl to increase our chances of survival at the checkpoints searching for Tutsis. Girls were killed last, while boys were the primary target. On the stairs as we left, she grabbed a small blue school dress, perhaps taken off a victim. This uniform, worn by young girls in Rwandan schools, served me well. My bloodied clothes would have given me away, and the dress gave me a girl’s identity that helped save my life.
For the next three months after that fateful day of April 26th, I became a girl and took on another name. I don’t know how my sister came up with that plan, but it saved me. Even the good Hutu man who eventually hid us, from a different commune (county), did not realize I was a boy until the genocide ended. My sister watched over me constantly, ensuring I got used to my new name (taken from my older sister who was killed) and did not make any mistakes that could endanger our lives if they discovered I was actually a boy.
Once we escaped the commune office compound, now a killing field, we embarked on a perilous 3-month journey, hiding and hunted like animals. We were finally saved when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) defeated the Hutu government in mid-July 1994. This rebel group, made up mainly of Tutsi exiles from neighboring countries, put an end to the genocide.
The details of our survival—and of the guardian angels God placed in our path—are stories for another time. Recounting everything that happened after April 26, 1994, would fill an entire book. Later, we learned that a mass grave, dug near the mayor’s office, held hundreds of victims, including my mother and sisters. Today, a memorial stands just a few meters from that mass grave to honor those who lost their lives.
The Rwandan government meticulously coordinated this extermination campaign, deploying the military, police, militias, and even ordinary Hutu neighbors to systematically eliminate the Tutsi minority. At the time, we had no name for this crime. By the end of those 100 days, the United Nations finally named it: genocide. In just 3 months, over 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutus were slaughtered – the fastest genocide in recorded history, 3 times faster than the Holocaust. 5 out of every 6 Tutsis inside Rwanda in 1994 were murdered for no reason other than their Tutsi identity. My own family, including parents, siblings, and extended relatives, were among the victims.
The international community failed to intervene, with France even supporting the genocidal government. The United Nations withdrew peacekeeping troops at the start of the violence, and the United States said it had no interest in French-speaking Rwanda at the time. The Rwandan Patriotic Front eventually ended the genocide by defeating the authorities responsible.
Decades later, the pain is still here. The genocide may be history, but for us it is a living wound. They say time heals all wounds. I doubt there will ever be enough time to heal ones this deep. Ends.
By Albert Gasake, April 7, 2019
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