It is sometimes said that God protects children in ways that humans will never understand, and Alphonsine Umutoni’s story of surviving the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi proves exactly that.
Born in Muhazi sector, Rwamagana District, Umutoni was 10 years old when the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi started.
ALSO READ: ‘I was a baby gasping for life among corpses’: A chilling tale of a Genocide survivor
Members of the Interahamwe used to hold meetings at a nearby school, where they would meet and discuss ways to kill the Tutsi. They had all sorts of weapons, and they would sing and dance to songs about ‘killing and exterminating the Tutsi’.
Being innocent children, they would go to see the Interahamwe during their meetings, commonly referred to as ‘mitingi’.
"We saw them plan the Genocide but had no idea. We didn’t know anything; they abhorred us,” Umutoni recalls.
Her family had been targeted for some time even before the Genocide. Umutoni’s father was a businessman who dealt in powdered milk from Uganda, where he would frequently travel to import goods.
"Once, he had just returned from Uganda and they surrounded our home. They accused him of conspiring with the Inkotanyi. From that time, our family started to go through serious challenges,” Umutoni narrates.
"We would be taunted on the way to school, with them calling us ‘abana bi Inyenzi’ and sometimes they would make Tutsi children stand up in class just to be humiliated. We lived that kind of life with no freedom or hope,” she says.
ALSO READ: A survivor’s recollection of the Genocide at the age of six
Even in school, things were not going well. They would be made to repeat a class solely because they were Tutsi.
On April 7, 1994, when the Genocide started, her mother broke the news of the death of then President Juvenal Habyarimana to the family.
That night, fear gripped the entire village as word started to spread that Tutsi were going to be massacred. They stayed in their homes for the first two days, and on the third day, the attackers arrived.
"They came and started burning houses, there was chaos everywhere. We fled to a nearby school and stayed there overnight. The next day, women and children were hungry, so the men went out to get potatoes. We started cooking. But before we could eat, Interahamwe attacked. The Tutsi men and boys organised themselves to defend us,” Umutoni recalls.
Interahamwe started shooting and slaughtering people. People started screaming and children crying— it was a terrifying and horrific situation.
"We scattered in different directions. Grenades were going off as we tried to escape and we fell into their ambush. Most of us were children and they began attacking us. Children were separated from their parents in that chaos. I fled with my younger brother and we could not trace our mother,” she notes.
They hid in a nearby banana plantation where they found other people. Among those hiding were some parents who noticed that they had been separated from their own.
ALSO READ: ‘Looking at my child, I saw the faces of the men who raped me’ - Genocide survivor
They tried to protect them even though they were also in trouble. At this point, her brother was hungry, but they had nowhere to look for food and no one to ask.
After a few days there, they were told that peace had been restored, and they returned home.
"We found out that our father had been killed but our mother had returned home. There was destruction everywhere. Houses had been ransacked and torched.
"Doors and windows had been removed from the houses. Our mother had a one-month-old baby at the time, and just as we settled in, dogs started barking. Soldiers had arrived,” Umutoni narrates.
Her grandfather, who had come to warn them about the impending danger, met the soldiers on his way back.
"We heard gunshots. I was curious, so I went to take a look and I saw with my own eyes that my grandfather had been shot dead," she painfully remembers.
She ran back to the house and told her mother, who was angry with her. She informed Umutoni that she had incurred the wrath of the marauding soldiers.
They had cows at home that were not stolen when the carnage broke out, and a Hutu man who was their neighbour kept them safe.
"As soon as they saw the cows, they said this was a Tutsi home. They entered and got us out. My mother told them we were Tutsi,” she said.
She begged them to allow her to at least pick her father’s body first and give him a decent burial before killing them. They allowed her to dig a shallow grave and she buried him before they continued with their mission.
"The soldiers told us to lie down and wait to be killed. At that point, they had not yet started killing women and children; they were mainly killing men and boys,” says Umutoni. The Interahamwe gathered women and children in one place as they discussed killing them.
The head of Interahamwe in the area had a Tutsi wife. Some argued that women and children were harmless, and that there was no need to kill them.
Umutoni recalls that there was a woman called Berecila who was pregnant. They laid her down and said they were going to cut her foetus out of the womb.
People began screaming amidst the chaos before someone said that they should not kill them since they had survived, anyway. Thus, they retreated.
At this point, people were starving; there was no food. Her three-year-old brother was becoming weak, and children were starting to die of hunger.
"Some Interahamwe had stayed on guard. They were not letting us go anywhere. They said they would keep us there until we died of hunger,” says Umutoni.
Time passed and they began to hear sporadic gunfire. News spread that government soldiers were fighting the Inkotanyi.
A truck came and they overheard soldiers saying that they were going to load the big gun and flee because the one in Kayonza had already been captured.
Before they could flee, some suggested killing us first, while others said there was no time to kill people because the Inkotanyi were advancing quickly.
"The soldiers surrounded us and said they were going to flee with us and kill us later,” the 40-year-old mother of four recalls.
They marched them off past a place commonly known as ‘Ku Giterane’ towards Ntambwe. At a place called ‘Baraje’, they handed them over to the Interahamwe, whom they ordered to do the killing, as they continued to flee from RPF fighters who were closing in fast.
Interahamwe heeded the order and immediately began hacking people with machetes. "We were many; we found another group of people at the location which was near a river. They started killing and dumping bodies in the river,” Umutoni narrates.
Suddenly, it started raining heavily. They gathered those they had not killed in one place, locked them in a building, and sought shelter from the rain.
The escape
As it rained, people began plotting how to escape during the rain. They said they would break down the door and all the people inside would run towards the places the Inkotanyi had liberated for safety.
"There were some Interahamwe on guard outside. The men and boys organised and burst the door open. They caught the Interahamwe off-guard as they ran in different directions.
"Instinctively, the Interahamwe abandoned their guard and ran after them. Remember they mostly targeted men and boys,” Umutoni narrates.
The women and children were able to flee in the heavy rain and Umutoni and her sibling headed for home.
"We met a policeman who was our neighbour. He was armed. He recognised us and stopped us in our tracks, and said there was a roadblock ahead which we wouldn’t survive. We were a group of 10. He said he would take us past the roadblock. Since he was armed, we felt safe. People had separated; I was now left with my mother and elder sister.”
They continued their journey and crossed over to a place called Gahondo, where they were spotted by the Interahamwe. The adults told the children to run as they hid in the nearby bushes, and the trick worked.
When the Interahamwe saw the children running, they thought they were only children and lost interest in pursuing them.
Later in the night, the children reunited with their parents and went back home, tired from running around. They were not aware that Inkotanyi had already arrived and secured the area.
"We had lost track of time and dates; we were hungry. My young brother, whom I had fled with, had been killed. The little one had died of hunger,” Umutoni sadly recalls.
By the time they returned home, she had lost her father, siblings, three aunts, and many relatives on both her mother&039;s and father's sides. Her mother had nine siblings, but only two survived, she says.
A new day
Today, Umutoni is among the women you will find at Urugo Opportunity Centre in Kayonza District, established by Women for Women International to equip women with income-generating skills.
Umutoni, who is married to another Genocide survivor, is thankful to the leadership of the country, which has given them life-changing opportunities, having grown up as a child who was discriminated against.
Umutoni is among the women at the centre who made the soccer ball which was endorsed by the President of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, earlier this year.
Despite not getting far with formal education, Umutoni has been able to capitalise on her other talents such as music and dance, as well as handicraft skills.
With the training and skills she acquired from the centre, she is able to sustain her family and afford the basic needs of her household. She attributes all this to the good leadership of the country.
"I was just a housewife taking care of my children. We have been trained and given opportunities. We meet as women to talk; we feel loved and appreciated. All this helps us forget our terrible past,” Umutoni says.