EASTERN PROVINCE

RWAMAGANA — She spent two years having speech disability but has suddenly started to talk again.

Hapuki Nzamwitakuze, a resident of Kigabiro in Rwamagana district had stopped talking mysteriously in 2007 and suddenly regained her talking ability recently after finding her father’s remains in the former Rutonde Commune, according to close friends.

John Munyaneza, a Genocide survivor in Rutonde commune, now Kigabiro Sector said on Wednesday that Nzamwitakuze uttered the first word after washing the bones of her father who was killed during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsis.

"She had visited many medical doctors but had failed to talk. It was one doctor, after knowing that her father’s remains were at large, who said that she would talk after discovering them,” Munyaneza narrated.

Adding, "So, on that day (after discovering and washing her father’s remains), four hours later she said, ‘I cannot believe that my father’s remains have been found and we are going to decently bury them.”

The New Times also talked to Nzamwitakuze, she seemed to talk with difficulty, but people who have been close to her said that the voice keeps on improving.

20-year-old Nzamwitakuze, had lost hope of finding the remains of her father and this reportedly made her restless. She always wished at least to locate the remains of her father, so as to give them a decent burial. 

According to Munyaneza, Nzamwitakuze stopped talking in 2007 after losing all the hope of finding the father’s remains.

Munyaneza asserts that this is one of the serious effects of trauma because others normally undergo simple ones which they overcome (heal) after counselling.

He notes that recovering remains of all genocide victims is still a problem because Genocide perpetrators refuse to reveal where Genocide victims were dumped during the killings. Others also do not want to tell the truth, especially those who are out of prison.

"Sometimes there is contradiction between those in prison and those who are out, putting survivors into confusion since they cannot tell what the truth is,” Munyaneza said.

Nzamwitakuze’s father’s remains were among those of 50 victims which were recently given decent burial at the Rutonde Genocide Memorial Site, in Kigabiro sector.

The bones were collected from Rutonde village, Bwiza cell and were exhumed from toilets and trenches. The latest burial brings the number of victims buried at the site to 1,750.

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