The hour of 9am on June 2, 1994, brought a smile on every Tutsi refugee’s face in the compound of a primary school run by the Kabgayi Catholic Diocese in Muhanga District, after ten agonising days.

Kabgayi, which lies on the main highway between Kigali and Huye, is an establishment known in the country as the ‘Vatican of Rwanda’ with several catholic-run projects, including schools, convents, a hospital and a church itself, among others.

During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Kabgayi was home to thousands of Tutsi from former communes of the then Gitarama Prefecture, especially Mushubati, Tambwe, Ntongwe, Mugina, Taba, Buringa and those who had escaped massacres from the capital Kigali.

I was one of those refugees at Kabgayi, having survived massacres at the nearby Gatagara area, where my parents, two young brothers and a sister were killed. 

When the Genocide begun, the Tutsi from the said communes in the south, just like the others across the country, wrongly believed in what had happened back in 1959; that they would be spared the moment they made it to the church precincts.

This is how in their thousands, they flocked the area and some were killed from Kabgayi while others were killed on their way there.

The Interahamwe militia from different communes, led by their leaders – especially Jean Paul Akayesu and Sixbert Ndayambaje, the mayors of Taba and Runda communes, respectively – toured different communes calling out Tutsi by their names to be killed.

From Kabgayi, many Tutsi (mainly men and boys) were picked and loaded onto ONATRACOM (state-owned transport company) buses and transported to Ngororero where they were killed.

At Kabgayi, the hiding places were; a primary school, Petit Seminaire de Kabgayi, Saint Joseph Secondary School and a brothers’ convent which was nicknamed CND (in reference to the Parliamentary Building which accommodated Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) troops).

The place was nicknamed so because the Tutsi hiding there put up resistance to several attacks from the militia, where one militiaman was killed as he tried to sneak into the compound, which prompted the intervention of the notorious so-called presidential guards, who shelled the place, killing many Tutsi.

When RPA troops entered the nearby towns of Ruhango and Nyanza on May 30, we believed it would be our last day on earth because the militia had vowed that they would ‘solve’ the Tutsi problem at Kabgayi within a week (they thought it would take RPA one week to arrive in Kabgayi).

During that time, the Hutu who lived in Kabgayi were told in secret to gather at Gitarama Stadium as a strategy to insulate them from an impending onslaught on the Tutsi.

On the morning of June 2, classrooms were searched and we were all paraded in the primary school compound by 10 FAR soldiers who mocked us that the Inkotanyi would not find us alive.

Shortly, we heard gun shots and suddenly all the soldiers started running as they heard the gunshots, RPA troops were already in Kabgayi and had surprised the then government forces.

We didn’t believe it was RPA, until we exchanged some words and noticed that their uniform and guns were different from the ones of genocidal forces.

We were all very hungry since we had not eaten for days. I, standing in a group of old people, one soldier called me in Swahili.

I didn’t understand but noticed that he was calling me; he pulled out a cassava root from his pocket and handed me, telling us that we would find more food on our next stop.

I was 11 at the time, but this day will, to me, remain a day of resurrection, and I believe this is the case for all those who were with me at the assembly point of the school, because no one would have been left alive.

RPA troops told us to use the main roads to avoid landmines. We were heading to Bugesera which was more secure and we walked on foot and we had different stops, including Ruhango, Ntongwe, Busoro, Ruhuha, finally Nyamata and Mbyo.

I cannot remember how many days it took us but finally we made it to safety, thanks to the gallant sons and daughters of Rwanda, the highly disciplined RPA forces who not only stopped the Genocide, but also liberated the country from the over three decades of misrule.

The writer is a survivor of the Genocide against the Tutsi and this short testimony is to acknowledge and thank RPA troops who struggled and sacrificed their lives to stop the Genocide.