By SANDRINE UMUTONIWASE

More by this Author

I was born in 1982, a happy and well united family is what I grew up seeing. As I am the last born of my family, I had a really good full amount of a­ffection invested in me. Gisenyi, that is my home town.

My Father was a teacher and my mother was a business woman. I had five siblings three sisters and two brothers.

When the Genocide Against Tutsis started I was at home with my parents and three of my siblings, the rest were in Rwamagana for holiday with my elder sisters. In the morning of April 7, 1994, we received a call from our friend warning us that things had reached a new level. We could feel the pressure and anxiety all around the neighbourhood. There were minibuses of Interahamwe which could park at people's (Tutsi) places and pack them in and bring them where they could kill a big number together.

After seeing that, my father started to come up with ways of escaping the troop of killers, he told my brothers to climb up onto the roof.

My father turned to me and blessed me, and told me to go hide at the local market that was nearby in the crowd of young children who were playing, that no one would notice me, it was not an easy thing to do; for she was so close to my father that even before at school were he taught in break time, we were always together. She obeyed the instruction but didn’t go to the market but instead she stayed nearby watching from afar of what was going on. “After a while, I was with a group of Interahamwe storming into our home, they took all of them beating them as well and paraded them where they were going to be killed.

After some minutes, I met a woman who recognised me and put on her Hijab and brought me to her home and I stayed there." "They killed my father and my three siblings, they did not touch my mother for she was already traumatised and they kept her to be killed at last.

She later came back to live with our neighbours. She came looking for me, and brought me back home. We stayed at home during that day and at night we could go hide in the bushes, it was not an easy thing at all, it was in a rainy season, you can imagine how bitter those nights well without a sweater, food was something we almost forgot it existed even though there is a lady who knew us, she was a Hutu; she sent us food few days, but we had no appetite for it; we were devastated. Those moments were filled with unexplainable grief.

I remember we spent almost five days without food." Nearing the end of May, that is when the Hutus started escaping from Inkotanyi from Musanze to Gisenyi, where they did not stay for long, but migrated to DRC, they went in that crowd because everyone was escaping to save their lives.

They reached to their family members and waited for things to come back on normality in Rwanda. When the soldiers of The Rwanda Patriotic Font liberated Gisenyi, they came back home and started life all fresh.

“It was not an easy journey at all because living without the presence of my father whom I was greatly attached to left a huge void in me, and my four siblings who were so close to me and took good care of me since I was a baby; that broke me and quenched my hope for tomorrow.

Two of my other siblings survived from Rwamagana as well, and joined us after. We synergized and aimed at maintaining focus as we strive for a bright future, and make proud ours who died horrible deaths.

The trauma was unavoidable at that time, but along with opening p and share my story to my friends and colleagues relieved my heart, I learnt to laugh again because after the genocide, my heart was full of bitterness and hatred towards those who killed my people.”

"With all the privilege to access education many people were denied with due to their ethnic groups, having access to education in a country with good governance fueled my passion for studying, I studied with the help of the government and got my degree in law from ULK and earned my masters in procurement at SFB, got a good job at Rwanda Public Procurement Authority where I work as an internal procurement officer after graduating from the university, and playing a role in rebuilding my country has been my everyday ambition.

I am now a mother of three amazing children. Looking at my children fills my heart with great hope for the future, they are my daily motivation and responsibility. Because I am raising a generation that shall lead to an even greater and better future.

" In conclusion, may all those who lost their loved ones find the courage to keep on working hard and not let themselves be fully controlled by the past, but invest in brightening the future that awaits as we teach our children (the upcoming generation) to keep on being the flamboyant carriers of hope