Pain and joy
Rwanda genocide survivor now citizen
SHE SPENT three months trapped in a Hutu neighbor’s tiny bathroom with seven other Tutsis, hiding from horror during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
But the message Immaculee Ilibagiza gave to dozens of fellow new Americans Wednesday — just minutes after taking the oath to become a U.S. citizen — was one of joy, forgiveness and hope.
“I feel American, I feel free — I feel like I am born again. I feel like I have a home again and I am so happy for you,” she said.
The 43-year-old mom of two, who lives in Manhattan, was one of 50 people from 16 countries to take the oath of citizenship in a Federal Plaza ceremony.
Her life changed on April 7, 1994, when she was home from college on Easter holiday in Rwanda, she said.
“My brother came to my room and gave me the news that the president of the country died,” she said.
Soon, her father asked her to go hide in a neighbor’s home. She was shocked when the neighbor showed her her hiding space, a bathroom he kept shut.
Eventually she shared the space with seven other women and girls. The first night she left, she learned nearly everyone in her extended family — including her parents and two of her brothers — had been killed.
Ilibagiza moved to New York in 1998; the U.S. later granted her asylum. “The genocide was horrible, like everything we go through, like what you have gone through I am sure to be able to be in this country,” she told the room of immigrants. “But it taught me a lot. It taught me the price of love, of peace, of freedom. And I lost my family, but I gained understanding about life.”
She cried after she got her citizenship certificate. “To be able to be an American, I feel like finally the war is over,”
she said.