When the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi unfolded, Kevin Iradukunda Kalisa was just five months old. Unlike many people who were old enough to witness the horror as it happened—relatives being hacked to death with machetes, or women being raped then killed before their children’s own eyes—those who were too young at the time, like Iradukunda, can only rely on what they were later told.

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Many survivors like Iradukunda were deprived of a chance to see, let alone get to know their families or relatives, a wound and pain they live with 29 years later.

His story

Born in Kivugiza, Nyamirambo, the current Nyarugenge District in December 1993, Iradukunda was abandoned as a baby during the Genocide and later picked up by a cadre of Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF- Inkotanyi) at ‘Tapis Rouge’ right next to the current Pele Stadium.

It is suspected that his parents were among the people killed in the environs of Nyamirambo as they fled towards the mosque, commonly known as ‘kwa Gaddafi’.

The member of RPF who picked him moved him to Rebero, where the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), the armed wing of RPF, was taking people after rescuing them as Interahamwe militia continued to kill Tutsis in and outside Kigali.

"I was found by a lady, she was an RPF cadre and her husband was also among the fighters. Her name was Annunciata. She took care of me,” Iradukunda says.

Because he was too young, these are details he only got to learn about later because the lady who found him wanted to raise him as her own child.

"She wanted to raise me as her own son. I was in P.6 when I figured out that there was some information I didn’t have. The school had asked us to bring information about our parents ahead of the national exams.

"She insisted that she would come to school herself and give them the details. After she came, I realised that the attitude of the teachers towards me was changing. They became more caring and attentive towards me,” says 29-year-old Iradukunda.

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At the time, he was doing his primary education at St. Famille. After performing well in his primary exams, he joined École Secondaire du Saint-Esprit de Nyanza, Southern Province, in 2004.

When he was in S.2, the family that was taking care of him could not do so anymore. The husband of his guardian retired from service and life changed tremendously. Even getting school fees became a hustle.

"In 2005, when I was about to go back to school, she sat me down and said she no longer had the means to pay my school fees. Before that, I had eavesdropped on a conversation.

"Her husband was telling her that it was time she looked for my family because now I was grown up. That is when it hit me. I was figuring out that the family I called mine had just adopted me,” says Iradukunda, who at the time was 14 or 15.

For three days, he could not eat or drink anything. She tried to comfort him but it was all in vain.

"I could not believe it. She had sat me down before but now it was all unfolding before me. I asked her, ‘I am not your child?’ ‘You are not my parents?’. She did her best to comfort me in the best way possible,” Iradukunda recalls.

Life became a puzzle. For three days, Iradukunda could not speak to anyone. His guardian, whom he called ‘mother’, would send other children to talk to him but it was all too shocking for him to handle.

An identity crisis

After asking her many questions regarding where she found him, Iradukunda decided to embark on a mission to search with the hope of finding where his family lived before the Genocide.

In the meantime, his adopted family was planning to move from Muhima, where they had lived for many years, to Kamonyi District. He moved with them to the Southern Province district but his heart was not settled there.

He returned to Kigali to continue his search. Annunciata had informed him that she picked him up among dead bodies in Kivugiza in the Nyamirambo area as they sifted through bodies to see if some people were still alive.

"She told me that they were searching through bodies and she found me. She said I was a beautiful baby. She picked me up and covered me because I was cold. She gave me what to eat.

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"She loved me and continued to take care of me. During our chat, she said she didn’t want me to know that she was not my parent because she had failed to trace my relatives,” Iradukunda says.

After the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Iradukunda’s guardian tried to trace his parents or family but in vain, so she decided to fully take care of him.

Praise for Inkotanyi

Iradukunda has nothing but praise for the people who saved him, particularly the RPF-Inkotanyi. These are people who didn’t have much and were literally volunteering to liberate the country but beyond that, they took care of the orphans.

"They didn’t have much but with the little they had, they took care of us under very difficult circumstances. They put their own lives on the line, faced the killers, and rescued us,” Iradukunda says.

When the family that raised him moved to Kamonyi, Iradukunda’s guardian handed him over to another family in Muhima, from where he continued to go to Nyamirambo in search of his family.

The search continues

Something inside continued to push Iradukunda to search. He didn’t want to give up. When he got preoccupied with discovering himself, he fell out with his new family.

He was forced to move out and find a new home. He would visit people he had known along the way and stay for a while. That was around 2008 or 2009. He was no longer going to school.

"I moved from one family to another. I could not find a place to call home. At one point I took on domestic work to make some money,” he recalls.

In 2009 he listened to Contact FM, a local station, and heard about a group of ladies who were helping young people who needed support. A lady took him in and also embarked on the journey to find his family.

"We met the then head of FARG, Julienne Uwacu. She asked us to compile a list of children with a similar problem, including those abroad, and submit it. She has promised to support us in every way,” he says.

He believes that if they work with institutions, they can identify all children that don’t know their family origin and try to locate them. Iradukunda hopes to build a hostel in the future, which can serve as a home to children with similar challenges.