15 years ago in Nyarubuye

Retracing the Genocide: 25,000 people butchered in three days It’s always hard to describe something like what happened at Nyarubuye parish during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. To those who have visited this place, I believe you will bear with me when I say so. It is similar to taking a scene from a Hollywood horror script. Just a stretch of about 20 km off Kayonza-Rusumo road, you are welcomed by a sign post that reads: The Nyarubuye Genocide Memorial site. There is total silence at the site only punctuated by sound of birds. This is the place I visited determined to retrace how the Nyarubuye killing was carried out. My sources kicked off by telling me that it all started in April 1994, days after the death of the then President Juvenal Habyarimana. Thousands of people from Zaza, Rukira, Rwamagana and Kayonza rushed to Nyarubuye parish then in Rusumo commune, now Kirehe district, seeking refuge. “We had heard of few massacres in different parts of the country over the radio and we fled to this holy place to save our lives,” narrates 50-year old Ferdinand Rwayigamba, one of the survivors in the area who also doubles as the memorial site guide. Rwayigamba recalled that on April 12, 1994, Silvestre Gacumbitsi the then Bourgumestre of Rusumo commune, ordered Israel Karamagi, the then conseur of Nyarubuye sector to count all the people who had sought refuge at the parish. “Over 25,000 people had gathered. He never told us the motive of the counting exercise but we thought it was for purposes of giving us some support as we were on distress,” he narrates. The following day the first group of Interahamwe from Mushikiri and other areas attacked the parish. “But because we were quite a formidable number we managed to repel them,” he says. On the morning of April 14, another group of the Interahamwe, this time another much more larger group staged another attack. Those under attack still managed to repel the attackers. In the ensuing fight part of the resistance efforts yielded fruits when those attacked managed to capture two leaders of Interahamwe; Francois Gisagara, who was then the President of MDR-power in Rukira and Rusumo and Anthony Hakizamungu who was also the President of CDR in Rukira and Rusumo communes. “We arrested them and took them to the area leaders in Nyarutunga,” says Rwayigamba. “But on the way we met Gendamerie [the police].The police however ordered us to release them. They even told us to lay down our arms. Basically we were left exposed.” Rwayigamba recalls that this was the time that they were ordered by the killers to have them divided so as to establish those targeted for elimination. The police, Rwayigamba adds, ordered Hutu among the group who had gathered to take up all the arms that had been confiscated. A person who was only identified as Vincent was singled out as one who had led the arrest of the killers. “In reality Vincent never did it but indeed I was the person who did it.” Rwayigamba added that Vincent was gunned down by the police to demonstrate what all the Hutus who had picked up the arms should be able to do. Rwayigamba further said that Vincent’s uncle a man who was known as Laurent Mbahutu was thereafter ordered to drink his nephew’s blood, before he was also beheaded to signal the onset of the killing. The two were thus the first victims to be murdered among those who sought refuge at Nyarubuye parish. Few moments later, Rwayigamba said the police ordered all the Hutu to attack and kill the remaining Tutsi. “Many of our colleagues did not manage to escape,” he narrates. At about 3:00pm on April 15, 1994, Rwayigamba says it was “the hour of reckoning had knocked”. He narrates that it was a day where cries of help fell on deaf ears. It was a day when friendship was broken and friends were ordered to cut off each others’ heads. He added that parents witnessed their sons, daughters, and friends killed in gruesome acts on account of their ethnic group. Fathers were ordered to rape their own daughters or mothers to have sex with their sons. Survivors recall that on that particular day, Gacumbitsi launched the massacre by beheading one elderly man. Survivors further indicated that the killing orgy by which mostly crude weapons were used such as hoes, machetes, spears and guns supplied by Gacumbitsi, lasted for three days during which about 25,000 people lost their lives. Rwayigamba recalls that only eight people survived. One of the killers he added, one notorious Daniel Rugayumukama who had nicknamed himself Simba (Lion) however, had made people’s hearts his favourite delicacy. “The parish had a bakery. It is this bakery that Simba used to roast the hearts of his victims. No one can tell how many people’s hearts he ate,” a sad looking Rwayigamba says. “He could pick out his victims one by one from among those who were hiding in the parish and lead him to that bakery just for him to have his favourite meal,” Rwayigamba narrated further. Other survivors recalled that the girls and women who would be found alive after a day’s killing orgy were destined to be taken to a house that belonged to Sisters (Nuns) and raped before finally killing them. Close to 120 relatives to Rwayigamba including his parents, brothers and sisters and his wife together with three children perished in the Nyarubuye killing. As I entered the former convent and restaurant,I saw first hand how the orgy was carried out. Clothes of those who were killed, their skulls and other bone fragments are littered every where. The skulls are arranged according to what caused their death; those that were killed by guns on one side, those killed by hoes on the other side. The instruments used to kill are also littered around including hoes, spears arrows and machetes.Outside the memorial house are stones that were used to sharpen the machetes. Ends