Recalling the horror of 1994 Rwandan genocide
TWENTY-four years ago on April 7, 1994, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams in Kigali witnessed the city descend into violence.
These were the first days of what would go on to become known as the Rwandan genocide, during which more than a million people lost their lives, including MSF staff.
The crisis that engulfed the country also spilled across the border, forcing refugees into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and Burundi.
Among those who lived through the tragedy were young people who would decades later become fieldworkers for MSF.
Claudia Kanyemera, Dominique Mukunzi and Innocent Maniraruta first encountered MSF as an organisation providing medical care and assistance to people fleeing the violence in Rwanda.
Kanyemera, a MSF finance manager, said: “I decided to join MSF long ago because I admired the mission of MSF, the neutrality, how MSF helps people who are in a critical situation, people who are victims of war. As a genocide survivor, a victim of political crisis, I know how much people need support when they are in these conditions.
“At that time of the Rwandan genocide, in 1994, I was in secondary school. We lived in the south province of Rwanda when everything started, and I was forced to leave my home with my family. We were internally displaced to another part of the country. I lost some family members during that time. It was really difficult. We fled and went to a place we thought was secure, but everywhere in Rwanda there was no place that was fully secure.”
Mukunzi, an MSF pharmacist, said: “In 1994 I was 11 years old when we fled. The genocide just took place in my home country Rwanda, and we had to escape. We walked for days, all the way across the border, into the DRC, until we reached the refugee camp in Bukavu. That’s where I first met MSF – in the refugee camps, helping people.
“We stayed there for over a year. Then in 1996, war started in Bukavu, and we had to leave again. Once more we walked for days, all the way to Kisangani, hundreds of kilometres away. Sometimes there were no villages along the way, so we just slept in plastic sheeting on the side of the road.”
Mukunzi said there was something which had remained in his mind from that journey.
“I remember being on the road to Kisangani, and there was a camp along the way. One day a small plane landed close to where we were, and it was MSF. They came to the middle of nowhere and made a small hospital which was helping refugees on the road.”
Maniraruta, also a MSF finance manager, said: “Since many years ago, I have always wanted to work with humanitarians so that I can help people who are in desperate need. In fact, in the beginning I always wanted to work with children so that I can give back and share what I have. I remember the genocide which took place in Rwanda in 1994.
“I remember how I wanted people from those countries to come and help us. But for a long time, no one came; people ignored what was happening, and Rwandans suffered.”