The Slaughter
In the forefront of the killing were the gangs known as Interahamwe, a Kinyarwanda word meaning ‘those who attack together’. Merciless and unrestrained in their savagery, these men were recruited from among the unemployed and disaffected youth, trained by the Presidential Guard in methods of mass murder and indoctrinated with hatred of Tutsis.
The Interahamwe used horrific ways of killing, using machetes, clubs studded with nails, axes, knives, guns, grenades and even agricultural implements such as hoes as their weapons. They beat people to death, hacked off limbs, buried their victims alive, drowned and raped the helpless. Many victims had both their Achilles tendons cut with machetes as they ran, to immobilise them so that they could be finished off later. Many of those who survived carry to this day the scars from machete wounds to their forearms, suffered as they tried to protect their face, neck or head from the blows.
While Tutsis perished by the thousand in huge massacres, hundreds more were murdered individually in the genocidal frenzy. They were hunted down in their homes, chased from swamps and forests, and stopped, raped and slaughtered at roadblocks. Many victims ended up in mass graves, some buried while they were still breathing and calling for help.
Countless thousands of unnamed skeletons remain on view to this day throughout Rwanda, preserved as memorials on massacre sites, in churches and in schools.