Editor,

RE: "Kaduha residents mourn German nun who rescued lives in Genocide” (The New Times, February 14).

I am really saddened by the loss of "Maman Milgitha”, as I learned to call her, since I started hearing about her. It was in the early 1980s when I would hear my dad, who was from Kaduha, and had fled Rwanda in 1973 to seek refuge in Burundi, talking about Maman Milgitha and how she was contributing to improving lives in Kaduha.

I came, even, to appreciate her more when I heard of how she managed to save people’s lives during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, including a cousin of mine, and another young girl, at the time, that someone in my family came to adopt and who is now a married woman.

I met Maman Milgitha only once, in 2003, when I was in Kaduha for the first time in my life, during a mass burial ceremony of the victims of the Genocide. I was impressed to see how humble she was, and how she was easily interacting with people originally from Kaduha, who had come from Kigali and all other parts of the country for the ceremony.

I am sure she had been saddened to see how tens of thousands of people from Kaduha and the surrounding areas had been killed. She had also been saddened to see that among the killers, were many people she knew who were from Kaduha and the surrounding areas.

I simply hope she managed to personally reconcile with that.

R.I.P Maman Milgitha—the Banyakaduha, living in Rwanda or abroad, who know how precious you were to Kaduha, will never forget you.

Dev

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What a moving story of courage and love! She truly was Jesus’ feet, hands, eyes, ears and heart.

It seems Banyakaduha can push for sainthood for this lady. We need more African stories on saints, especially since she was a foreigner who risked her life.

RIP Maman Milgitha.

Kigali Girl