Nkurayiza Jean Claude was a joyful teenager who enjoyed playing football at school and looking after cattle during his free time at home. That’s just how the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi found him. Below, he narrates his ordeal during the Genocide and how he survived.

I was fifteen years old when the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi happened. I was staying with my parents in Mayunzwe sector in the current Ruhango district.

I had gone to graze cattle when the killings began. My dad sent a messenger to tell me that I should take the cattle to one of the class rooms of a nearby primary school and head home immediately. This I did.

However, just a few days earlier a certain neighbour had asked me whether we are Hutu or Tutsi. He told me that he had seen my family on the list of those who were supposed to die.

So I connected this directive from my father and what this man had told me, I got a feeling that probably the time had come. After reaching home, I joined my mother in the kitchen. Then I heard footsteps out and suddenly a voice of a man saying.

"We are complete idiots. How come we are doing nothing in this village yet elsewhere people have started the work? We have not even burnt down a single house!” After they left, my mother told me to be strong.

"Everything is going to be fine.” She then went out looking for my father. After a while she came back with him.

My mother told my father to prepare and we flee but my father was hesitant. I could hear gunshots and explosions in other areas.

Finally we rose up. We decided to seek refuge at a Hutu family friend of ours. The killings were intensifying all around us. I could hear kids screaming and people groaning on the hills next to our home.

When we reached the neighbours’ house, they hid us for the night in an extension near the bedroom. My sister Claudine found us there later.

In the morning our neighbour told us that it was really unsafe in there since the Interahamwe were marauding around the area and could easily find us. I was then taken to the rabbit pen where I slept.

The rabbit pen was totally unbearable, it was extremely small. I could hardly change position. In the evening I left it and went back to the main house.

When my father returned, he was told that I was getting stubborn and that it was getting hard for them to hide me. My father escorted me back to the rabbit pen and told me to be patient and hide. He assured me that things would soon normalise.

I hid there for the next two days but would sneak out and go for food and some rest at the neighbour’s house. The rabbit pen soon became unsafe as the Interahamwe were constantly passing by with dogs. Our neighbour then hid us in the ceiling.

However, just after a few hours he came and told us that it was also unsafe since the Interahamwe were searching each and every place in the house. So my father took us down in a swamp and hid me among bricks which were arranged for burning.

However, I kept hearing a bird screaming my sister’s name over and over again. Instinctively, I sensed danger. I picked her and we moved out.

Just after we had moved a few meters behind a brush, a group of Interahamwe with dogs and armed with pangas and sticks surrounded the place we had just left, missing us narrowly.

A few hours after they had left, my father came searching for us where he had earlier left us. I called him and before leaving us he said, "My children it has become increasingly hard for me to live, but be strong and I wish you luck. Be good people when you survive.”

Nearby was a cave which looked like a habitat for a wild animal. I held my sister and we slid inside it. For two days we lived there. It was stinking awfully due to the beast’s excretion which was scattered all over.

At that time I didn’t know where my mother and the rest of my siblings were. So we slowly moved out of the cave and followed a small path.

After we had walked for an hour, we met another Hutu neighbour of ours. He asked us about the rest of the family and I told him that I didn’t know where they were.

He walked along with us. About two kilometres on, we met a group of Interahamwe putting up a road block. There were several corpses lying on the roadsides.

They stopped us and asked us for our identity cards. Our neighbour told them that we were all Hutus. However, one of them said that such legs couldn’t be for Hutus. So he put an axe on my head intending to kill me.

That’s when our neighbour got out three hundred franks and gave it to that Interahamwe who then let me go. We kept coming across more roadblocks and killers. We were then stopped by more determined killers who had seized an elderly couple.

They stripped them naked and butchered them in front of our eyes. By that time I had parted with my sister and the Hutu man. I don’t remember how but I was alone, following trails in the bush and jumping dead bodies.

Just when I was about to give up on life feeling very hungry, a very dark and mean looking soldier emerged from behind me and asked me who I was and where I was from.

Initially, I thought this was a government soldier who would instantly kill me. I told him everything about me and he said, "So you are a cockroach. Come and follow me.”

I thought he was taking me to his fellow killers. Nearing his camp, I saw a tall and slender man. Suddenly my heart came back. At that moment, I thought, "If I am to be killed then even this man will have to be killed or else I am in safe hands.”

The tall man came to me and consoled me. I was given food and water. I rested and after sometime I regained my strength and told them my story.

It was in 1995 that I was re-united with my family. Sadly, I had lost my father and a few relatives during the genocide. 
We have slowly picked our lives up and things are slowly improving.

I am a finalist at University courtesy of sponsorship instituted by government. It has surely washed our tears and I pray that the almighty rewards it abundantly.

Ends