Bearing Witness
Niyirora, Bernardine
IT WAS AROUND the 15th of April 1994 that we started to spend the night in sorghum fields and in the woods. People were being pursued during the day, killed or tortured. When I saw this, I put my...
...But she couldn't sit down, for she was unable to stretch out in any direction...
...We were dying like flies...
...At daybreak we made it back to our old houses near Saruheshyi...
...We were driven to the school of St...
...He led us on the road to Evode's house...
...We continued on our journey and came to the asphalt road...
...We were led to the Women's Training Center, where we found many gravely wounded people...
...They attacked everyone, even the little boys...
...We left in the direction of Byimana...
...I approached a nun and showed her my trembling mother and my suffering little brother...
...The killers found me in the forest and beat me on the feet...
...There we spent the night...
...She looked for a place to shelter them and left them in the henhouse...
...After our prayer, they began to beat the old, for, they said, the old ones knew the whole history of the Inkotanyi...
...The next day everyone was looking for someone to give him a piece of potato to eat...
...It was my little brother, seriously injured in the head but not yet dead...
...So we turned in the direction of the commune to put ourselves in the hands of the authorities...
...So we returned to the place where we lived and found that our houses had been burned...
...Mama, feeling that she was about to deliver, went to the maternity ward and gave birth...
...I begged them, "This one isn't a boy...
...Reprinted by permission from Le Genocide an centre du Rwanda: Quelques temoignages des rescapes de Kabgayi (Genocide in the Center of Rwanda: Testimonies of Survivors of Kabgayi), ed...
...Arriving at the school, we realized that death was better than staying here...
...We took refuge in sorghum fields again and spent the night there...
...They took our grandfather, named Straton Ruhoryongo, and his sons, three in number, and beat them to death with nail-studded clubs...
...Her head was swelling up too, for she had received a blow from a club...
...Food was prepared, but to get any you had to be strong for the fight...
...She looked at them and took pity and brought them a cup of tea, even a bit of corn...
...We spent the night under the sky, in the rain...
...They told us, "The women and girls can clear out...
...But it was impossible, for we ran into a roadblock...
...Unable to lift him, I dragged him along the ground...
...We continued this sad life until . . . . the 2nd of June, around ten in the morning, when we heard bursts of gunfire...
...Instead, we found frightening young thieves who took away a girl among us...
...I saw that he was in agony and poured some water over his body and more in his mouth...
...Our clothes were taken...
...Dysentery and hunger were exterminating us...
...When I saw this, I put my little brother on my back, for Mama was pregnant...
...I was paralyzed where I sat...
...Then we saw the army of the RPF advancing among us...
...It was around the 25th...
...So we took the Bukomero road and neared a group of school buildings, believing we could find lodging there...
...The next day I noticed that policemen were carrying something that looked like a corpse...
...We were told to pray, for it was our last day...
...A few moments later, I saw that Mama was dripping blood and water down her legs, which were very swollen...
...The girls with me were raped...
...In the middle of the night we climbed Mount Kanyarira to try to reach Kabgayi...
...Abbe Hildebrand Karangwa, published in Kigali by Kinyamateka, October 200@@@R=ˆ@ˆ@ˆ@¨?AAA...
...Then she came back to us...
...It was useless to hide...
...By chance I found someone to help me carry my little baby brother...
...They opened the door, and those who could followed them...
...On the 29th of April buses came to take us on board...
...We knew we had to die...
...They took my little brother...
...There we received the order to go back...
...In our compound, the henhouse was bombed but by a miracle no one was touched...
...We were visited by a cripple who said, "Go give yourselves up, for sooner or later you'll have to...
...They left him alone and took away everyone they had chosen and went to kill them behind the house...
...He was laid out in the vestibule...
...Joseph...
Vol. 49 • January 2002 • No. 1
