As a young boy growing up, Jean-Felix Kinani first knew about the tragedy of 1994 through watching the events as relayed on television. At the time, he lived with his family in his native Lubumbashi, in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"I remember my father telling me that this was the worst period of his life. He received frequent letters announcing the death of his family members that lived in Kinihira village, in the Southern Province of Rwanda. Back then, the area was called Mubasinga,” Kinani recounts.

In the ensuing violence, the then little boy lost 75 percent of his father’s family.

"My father took care of the Tutsi who survived in Kinihira village, providing them with education and support. He moved back to Kigali in 1996 to join in the rebuilding of Rwanda,” Kinani adds.

Meanwhile, the young man chose to remain in Lubumbashi and continue his studies in veterinary medicine. "In 1998, the Tutsi extermination ideology was running rampant once again, only this time, in DRC, and Kabila’s army was being attacked regularly by the RCD (Rally for Congolese Democracy) rebel movement, which was allegedly receiving support from Rwanda,” says Kinani, adding: "During this war, all Congolese Tutsis were identified and were either arrested or killed by DRC soldiers, FDRL, Zimbabwean and Angolan soldiers who came to DRC to protect the government.”

That year (1998), he too was arrested, and unknown to him, his ordeal would last a whole year. "I spent eleven months in Bakita, a five-bedroom house used as a Tutsi concentration camp housing almost a thousand people.”

Five months into their incarceration, the inmates were visited by a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross and, for the first time, were allowed to leave the jail’s walls for 30 minutes, "to get some sun, take our first baths, and have our conditions assessed.”

"Every day we ate a piece of ubugali (corn meal) and a spoonful of beans at3:00 pm. Each morning, we were asked to stand up for identification control and each one of us had to stand for two minutes before the jailers. Apparently it was an exercise requested by authorities to make our ordeal more difficult.”

After eight months, the detainees received an additional supply of food, before being evacuated to Rwanda.

Going to Senegal

On arrival and upon settling down in Kigali, Kinani quickly arranged travel to Senegal where he would spend three years pursuing his degree in veterinary medicine. Unknown to Kinani, the Rwandan community in Senegal was witnessing the same atmosphere of ethnic tensions and hatred that had forced him from his native home.

"There were many Rwandans who hated one another in Senegal,” he says, and quickly blames this state of affairs on former Rwandan government officers who had been exiled to French-speaking African countries and had now turned to subversion.

"The entire time we were there, we were reminded of how our people had suffered and continued to suffer in the Congo. I remember during the 8th commemoration of the Genocide, I read a Boris Diop piece with these powerful words: "les innocents ne sontpas morts, ils se reposent”: (innocent people don’t die, but they rest). My father’s family members were not killed with guns, but with machetes and spears in the village where they lived. They suffered a lot. ‘Les innocents ne sont pas morts, ils sereposent’ gives me relief that they are at peace now.

A brighter future

After completing his studies in Senegal in 2003, Kinani rejoined his father and four of his sisters in Rwanda. "For the first time, I was able to see and feel the change and growth that had taken place in the country -especially in the tourism sector,” he explains.

This, coupled with his recently attained skills in veterinary medicine would soon lead him to his dream job, working with his best friends, the famed mountain gorillas.

The gorilla doc

Today, he holds the enviable title of head field veterinarian at the Gorilla Doctors, in Musanze, an organization dedicated to conserving wild mountain and eastern lowland (or Grauer’s) gorillas through life-saving veterinary medical interventions. This position tasks Kinani with coordinating the health care of all mountain gorillas in the Volcanoes National Park.

"I’m proud to have worked as a gorilla doctor for eleven years now,” he says proudly. "We have a great team of veterinarians and through our medical interventions and other extreme conservation practices, the mountain gorilla population has grown by 26 percent. In fact, they are the only endangered species of wild great ape that are increasing in number.”

He attributes this success story to the intricate collaboration between the Rwandan government and many partner organisations working in the region to safeguard the endangered species.

"We feel that we are part of this success story, through our role of providing medical care to the mountain gorillas and our One Health initiative to support the health of the human and wildlife populations. Through the revenue sharing program implemented in Rwanda, citizens living around protected areas receive 5 percent of the Rwanda tourism profits, which is helping to reduce poverty in the country, as well as improve healthcare and hygiene, and reduce food insecurity.”

Remembering the Genocide, 20 years later

On Monday, January 7, Rwanda launched the Kwibuka 20, a series of events taking place in Rwanda and around the world, leading up to the annual genocide commemoration that began on April 7.

And twenty years on, Kinani’s plea to the world is one: "To unite to remember the lives that were lost. We ask the world to come together to support the survivors of the Genocide, and to ensure that such an atrocity can never happen again – in Rwanda or elsewhere. Kwibuka 20 is a time to learn about Rwanda’s story of reconciliation and nation building.”

"Twenty years after the genocide, Rwandans have shown the world that our wounds can heal even though we will never forget the past. Through us, the world sees that a country can recover from extreme violence spurned by division and hate. Rwanda suffered the systematic extermination of more than a million people in just 100 days in 1994. Even now, burials are still taking place for skeletons recovered from latrines and mass graves.”