I Saw People Being Beheaded And Eaten By Dogs | Minutes With | @LADbible

people

's bodies,

being

fed to these

dogs

and the dog eating them and sitting there, scared, knowing that if they see me, they'll know they're biting me, I don't think I was. He was so terrified that Rwanda was largely made up of two tribes. Can you explain the first moment you really realized there was a difference between these tribes? The first time I really realized I was different was when it was in 1990, I was in preschool in primary school and our teacher asked us are you a Hutu are you a Tutti and will you raise your hand and I didn't really know what they were asking, so I didn't raise my hand.

I came home and they told me that tomorrow don't come to school when I don't know your tribe, so that day when they sent me back home, my mom told me that the next time they ask you, stand in Tutsi, like this that there were only two or three students in the class and you get that feeling that I'm not wanted I'm not accepted my classmates really don't like me because of how I was born and I didn't have a choice in the matter I didn't understand why they call me a cockroach why I get bullied at school.

Why do they have to hit me or watch

people

get hit for

being

tutti? So those things were happening when I was a child and it's really ideological propaganda that led to the genocide in 1994. What was your goal for those who elected? I wish I could answer. That question's objective was to exterminate all the tutti with whom I remember sitting in the living room with my father and my two brothers because my mother was away, he went to visit our grandparents and she was with our last son who was then two years and me. He said I'm not sure if your mom is coming back um they're going to kill us because we're tootsie and he just gave us a briefing he said, you know, put on, we were already in our pajamas ready to go to bed and he said put on your clothes. you know where layers so we had two layers each and he said if you hide don't hide together because if you are together they will kill you all the next day on the seventh in the morning there were all these people running through the town I remember I hid underneath out of bed that day they came to our house and my dad was not there because he went to hide they say where is the cockroach where is it inensi that is the word they used in Kinarwanda and they are Talking about the soldiers who were fighting against them, I'm like no we knew where they are, so the same day on the eve of the night I went to hide in the bush and, when I was hiding, I went, of course.

You know, our father told us not to hide together, so I went alone and hid in the bush and wandered and waited. I was lucky because I didn't have an ID. We used to have an ID card in Rwanda that is written: tribe you are like that and you don't get that ID until you are 18 or 16, I think they didn't ask me for the ID so I will hide in front of people, but there was a lady who she was walking around hiding and she had a baby and she had her ID and they showed her her ID and they just cut off her head and she had a baby.

I can't tell how old she was, but she was very young because she was still feeding her and um. walking, seeing this woman being killed and seeing the child suckling from his mother when she was dead, I was devastated, I couldn't pick her up, I wanted to, but I was too afraid to run with this baby and, um, yeah, I just passed her and went and hide in the one in the house you can hear outside you know the noise and people running oh find out there are two tuttis passing by so people will scream because they saw someone when it got dark I walked back to my house and I went and Hide in my you know what I called a safe place because it was a Petra train, which is a bathroom with a hole that was completely full and no one was using it and I want to go back and sit there behind that Petra train that there used to be. a football field and you'll hear this Hutu sitting there, they're drinking, they drank alcohol and they were talking about how many Tutsis they've killed or we killed so-and-so, oh, we raped so-and-so and sitting there, I just knew that um Yeah They see me, they will come and kill me.

I was hiding in the mountains and the people who were running away from the murderers said: "Go out, go out with the

dogs

." I said they were with the dogs, people's bodies, um, being fed. to these dogs and the dog eating them and sitting scared knowing that if they see me they will know they will bite me, I think it was like that, I wasn't. I was so terrified when I ran out of that bush. I just ran, I'll say like maybe 100. meters and then I went, I got to the road when I heard them making noise and the dog running next to me, so I ran away and I fell on the road and they saw me and said come on , see, then someone came and hit me with the big stick they had, those sticks were a little big on the top and they had nails on them, I just fell into the hands of those very white people and hoping to kill us and they had, you know, they'll tell you If I had money and you would give it to them they will kill you by shooting you if you didn't they will cut off your head some people will say oh I will give you this forgive me but they didn't even have that mercy for Sorry so they cut off the heads of the people in front of me and threw them in that big hole there.

I was paralyzed. I saw many people murdered. I knew I was the next one to be killed, so I wasn't really worried. You know, I was. It's not like, oh, they're going to kill me. I was like, yeah, that's what's happening and it was only when there were two people in front of me, um, that someone screamed, I don't even remember who, I just heard the voice they said. The banking Kegel is being broken, they were robbing the bank, so all the killers around us, the focus was not on the people they were killing, they wanted to go get money.

I survived that day thanks to greedy people. So they ran away to get money and I ran back into the bush and stayed there. How long were you in the mountain park? So I was in the mountains for up to three months, or it was in the church where they were killing us and I was hiding among the corpses, or I was on the train to Petra, I was alone, I was alone in the field or I was in line for They would kill me, so those three months have been the longest nightmare of terror I have ever felt. like it lasted an eternity if I may say because when we talk about it now we talk about three months and but for me it lasted an eternity I felt like it lasted an eternity because I wasn't sure at all, I mean you're only 12 years old.

While all this was happening, what was going on in your head? Do you know when? When death surrounds you, there is nothing else you think about other than the day. I was numb. I was ready. I knew they would kill me at any moment. I saw people killed many times so I was just waiting for them to kill me so I continued until the last day when I found again where we were hiding I left where I was and came to see my brother he is there he is hungry and I sat down with him and the next thing I heard from the people they talk about is that Kigali has been liberated and the one who liberated their country is the RPF, so that's when all the murderers or the people who started fleeing Rwanda or and go to uh to the congo that was the end that was the end when you see arapf in watani come to you and tell you that you are safe and yes, I knew that I am in good hands, what happened to the rest of your family during those three months.

Hmm, yeah, so, my brother, my little brother was murdered with my mom and he was two years old. They dug under the ground and built on top of it to hide the children underneath. There were about 50 children there. So, like less than two that couldn't run three, then my younger brother was among the children that were hiding there and the Hutu came and when they discovered, they saw one of the parents bringing food, you know, they found something and brought it for those children. They poured paraffin in that place and just set it on fire and all these kids were banned, including my little brother.

My third brother, who is a boy, was also killed during the genocide. I was with him once because they showed him the grenade and him. I took part of his head and I was with him when he was taking his last breath. I remember when he asked me for water. I had nothing to give him, so that was the last day I saw my brother killed. Know? and yes, and my second brother, Antoine, survived and my father did not die, he also survived, but my two brothers and my mother died in genocide. What impact does it have to go through something like that?

It's been a long journey to go through this. things because I think that what happened to me your memory has the ability to store certain information and you don't think about them because you're not ready. I think that's what happened to me at that time, we're talking about five years. six years after the genocide three years, you know, that time of the ten year period, sometimes I can't sit with people who talk about their three month experience because it was so painful and when April comes around every year and that's when you start, I'm starting to feel like my body will really feel it and I'll have these memories.

I'll think about what I saw, but I just want to hurry because I wasn't able to. I was 22 then, finished high school and got out. I am waiting for my high school results to go to university. I have nothing to do. The job I got was at Aegis Trust and the job was that they had a project 10 years after the genocide to build what they call the Kigari genocide. memorial, so if you knew what I was signing up for, probably not, it took me to those three months because when I was doing my research, going to the village was to find out how many people, how many Tutsi families lived in this village. and you know how they were killed, what it was like and then my job was to inform the office because they are trying to collect data of what happened 10 years later, so that is the time, if I may say, 10 years after the genocide , I was like I just woke up, these things happened to me and then I lived, I lived that life again, he gave me the job, he gave me the responsibility to deal with what was going on and that's how I started, I started the journey of dealing with my trauma and with doing something that contributes to society, as well as giving dignity and respect to the people we have lost, including my family and how are you today.

I am alive. Yes, how am I today. I'm very well. I am thriving in 2004. I made a decision I want to start this journey of forgiveness Is it easy? No, it has never been easy and I even talk about it now. Is not easy. Sometimes people marry who. With entities. Which was? So, I know one. My aunt married a human and this man killed her, but I'm committed to keep trying to keep forgiving when people hurt me when people don't make the right decisions and that's what I really want to say to everyone I'm around. the opportunity to share. and that's what I'll say, that's what I said when I met the man that killed my aunt and I was sitting with him and he looked at me so remember this was 2016 and the last time he met me was before '93 . or 92 I was a baby so I know I'm an adult and he looked at me and I said do you know me? and he said yes, he could see me through my grandmother, who is his mother-in-law, and then he said, you know, yeah, I'm glad you know me, I came here to tell you to forgive you, forgiveness is the key to your freedom, that's how I say it and it's a choice and it's a journey and it's not easy, but it's the The key to your freedom was a witch doctor who had put this girl to bed, put herbs all over her body and was about to cut her off before the security guard found her, rescued her, and brought her to this baby's house where I was working.