Testimonies from Widows
The widows of the Rwandan genocide suffered at the hands of the interahamwe. They lost their husbands, their children, their families. They were brutually raped and infected with HIV and AIDS. Their means of support and their homes were taken from them. These are their stories ...
Agnes Kimisanga's Story
My name is Agnes Kimisanga, I am 59 years. I reside at Nyamirambo. Before the genocide I lived with my family in Kigali Rural, but now I can't bear to see or set foot in my home area.
I lived with my mother, my father died when I was 35 years. I never married, working as a primary teacher I looked after my mother. We were two sisters and two brothers and had many cousins and relatives. They all died except my brother who was badly beaten and injured with machetes. I tried everything to save his life but he later died. Over 50 members of my family perished during this tragedy, my mother could not be spared although she was very old. My sister and brother, their children cousins, nephews, nieces, everyone died. I am beginning to forget them, when I count them. My memory is failing and that scares me.
I grieve a lot for my brother and his wife because we have never found their bodies and give them a decent burial. I was told their bodies were left outside naked and were eaten by dogs.
I can't live a normal life, I am short tempered, and I have failed to continue teaching. I don't feel I am any good for children, although I have found 7 children from my relatives and live with them. Our house was destroyed and now I have to rent a small room for us to live in.
I came to AVEGA to seek support. I am going through counselling to help deal with my experience, especially sexual violence. I didn't marry. I was still a virgin at 53 years. Rape has left me empty and hurt beyond reasoning. At times I want to give up but I am a Christian and can't take my own life. Yet I have no life. I spend sleepless nights feeling like my head is going to explode.
When I speak to people my head gets lighter and I find consolation when I meet someone worse off than me.
Angelique Kairangwa's Story
I am 28 years old and live in Nyamirambo with my 5 year old child. Before the genocide we were a family of 9 girls. My family had everything going for them. I can't forget my father's happiness when I married.
I married my late husband in January 1994, genocide struck during early April. My husband and I went to hide with our parents. About 30 members of our family stayed together while killings went on around us. We gave Interahamwe money so they left us alone.
We run out of money and couldn't hold them off for long. During the month of June, Interahamwe came. They took my husband and killed him. I was 8 months pregnant. Then another group came and took both my parents and my husband's family and killed them. I was then raped and left bleeding. I thought I would lose my baby, luckily I didn't.
I was rescued in July and I live with my son and a surviving brother. Life will never be the same again.
My 7 sisters survived, not surprising, because Interahamwe needed Tutsi girls to humiliate. We all know that we were sexually abused but we never discuss our feelings. How can we?
I run a small tailoring business, I live in my husband's house and do not have to pay rent, I take home 15,000 RWF per month (£30). AVEGA has been supportive, at times when things are tough AVEGA gives me food aid to keep me going and gives me advice which helps me to pick myself up and focus on looking after my surviving child.
Adria Mukamugema's Story
I am Adria now 66 years old. I live in Muruhango in Gitarama prefecture. I was at home in Gitarama during the genocide. The morning of 7th April my life changed. Early in the morning people came to our home and they ordered us to go out and started looting our property. We ran and hid in a banana plantation. At 2pm a group of Interahamwe found us, they killed my four children and husband in front of me and left me behind to die of grief. I watched as they turned and cried in pain, bleeding from machete wounds. I tore pieces of cloth to stop bleeding in vain. I ran to a neighbour's house to seek helped, but was turned down because they said that if they help me they would be killed. I didn't get help for them. I really tried but people were just laughing at me. I went mad, and asked people to kill me and stop my grief. I wish they had saved me from the kind of grief I now bear.
That night, I crept in a swamp nearby and spent a night there. I spent three days in the swamp, on the fourth day I was very hungry, I ventured back to the neighbours house, they gave me food and told me that my sister had survived and was in a centre called Rugogwe. I walked all night long to find her. I had a bad back and couldn't walk fast enough. By the next morning, I decide to continue although I knew that Interahamwe would kill me if they found me.
On my way, I met a group of youths that I knew in my neigbourhood, aged between 14 - 18 years old. They were singing and chanting hate songs. They stopped me and asked me where I was going. I said I was visiting my children and that I wasn't a Tutsi addressing them as my grand children. They ordered me to undress, they then held me upside down and tied my legs on a branch of a tree using banana fibres. As they walked away I heard one of them saying; this is very bad, I will let the old woman off, and let her be killed by someone else. He cut the fibre and released me. I realised I couldn't make it to the centre, I approached the next house I came to and asked if they could hide me. There were other people hiding there too. For two days this family, whose wife was Tutsi and husband Hutu protected us. Unfortunately, life wasn't meant to be. Interahamwe came in the afternoon and killed this woman and her three children while I was hiding in the latrine. I left immediately and went to a nearby parish and sought protection from a priest.
At the parish we were more than 1,000 people. Everyday, people came and chose whom they wanted to kill, even the priest could not stop them. First they took young girls to rape, then young men. It occurred to us that we were just waiting to die, and that it is better to die at home, most of us left and walked aimlessly heading for our homes. During this time unknown to us was that the Rwanda Patriotic Front was closing in on the killers and they were running away to Zaire.
Eventually I came to a friend's house who was Hutu. He hid me and kept me for I month. One afternoon a nine year old spotted me and went to alert Interahamwe, they came in large numbers waving pangas and machetes. I knew these people very well. They were our friends before genocide. They told that my family was rotting in the banana plantation where they had been killed. As if to punish me even more they decided I wasn't worth killing since grief and pain would kill me in the end. They left me alone. I stayed at this friend's house until Gitarama was liberated.
In brief, my family 4 children and a husband were killed, nephews, cousins, grandchildren and relatives. Only my two children who lived in the capital survived and I thank God for them. Before I found them, I thought I would not cope, I spent the early days after genocide searching for them. Then I started collecting orphans to look after. I now have 10 orphans who keep me alive. One of the little boys was raped during genocide and he is HIV+. He is traumatised and AVEGA is helping us deal with the ordeal. I run a small business selling groceries at the trading centre. I have to get school fees for the children and met the medical bills for the 6 year old, who is constantly ill.
Esther's story
I lost my husband Innocent at the age of 37 on the 30th April 1994. I have not buried him. He was put in a mass grave near the place where he was killed, along the road near the place where we used to live. A year later 1995, all bodies which were in the town were exhumed and buried. With the children we have chosen a corner of this huge grave and observe this location as his grave.
I also lost my father Mfizi Epaphras who was 80 when he was killed in April. As he was old and respected in the village, many people came to take refugee in our place, thinking that they will be safe with him. But all 37 who were in our home were killed with my father. They were all buried in a mass grave in our compound.
My mother Monika Mukagihana aged 78 and my father's sister were disabled. After killing my father they took my mother and my aunt outside the house and stripped them naked, took their clothes leaving them lying among dead bodies outside. They watched as property was looted and our house destroyed. My mother died 4 days later and my aunt one week later. They died of hunger and exposure to the sun and rain. Birds ate their bodies.
My sister Stephenie was killed in Kigali in the beginning of June, with her husband and her children who were 6, 4, and 2 years old. We have tried in vain to find where their bodies were dumped, until now the neighbours have refused to tell us where they are so that we can bury them properly. We believe my sister's neighbours know where their bodies are but they were involved in killings and won't give us any information.
My mother and father in law were killed with 4 brothers and sisters in law, plus grandchildren and their daughters in law. From an entire family only 7 children and 2 sisters in law have survived.
In 1995, we found the body of my father in law and my sister in law and we gave them a decent burial. We also located my mother in law and her 12 grandchildren thrown in a pit latrine (African long-drop toilet), we managed to reclaim them and were able to bury them decently. (Many of my relatives whom we know are dead, we haven't been able to locate the bodies of).
My surviving sister found the bodies of her 19 year old son and husband two years later. She is relieved to put the whole jigsaw puzzle together. The bodies of my uncle Anselma and his wife are not yet located either, two of my aunts (mother's sisters) and eight children were also killed.
It is difficult to enumerate all the uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins etc. who died in the most horrific way. For the few who survived, like I did with my three daughters, it was just a miracle. It is difficult to explain it. We hid together (relatives and friends) at night, the killers took my husband with 14 men and boys and killed them. We heard them shooting, then shouting, screaming followed by silence. My daughters asked me, is that father they are killing? I replied yes. We all went quiet, we couldn't cry, the children couldn't cry. The killers said they were coming back for us. So we waited, hiding in the convent garden, but they didn't come back to take us.
In mid-June I bribed a soldier who accepted to take us to Mille Colline Hotel, from there we were evacuated to the Rwandan Patriotic Front Camp in Kibaga. At the end of June, Oxfam evacuated me to Uganda.