Augustin Rulinda

Augustin Rulinda is the youngest son of Ananias Rusakyenwa and Consolé Minkenndiye. Before the genocide, he had five older sisters and three older brothers. His father worked in husbandry, raising and selling cattle, and his mother stayed at home to raise the children. The devastation of Augustin's family is sadly representative of the myriad adversities which have troubled Rwanda in the last few decades, and which continue to threaten the social fabric of the present day.

"All three of my brothers died even before the genocide began, and my father too. One of my brothers was living in Byumba where the war began in 1990, and he was killed in one of the early battles. Another one of my brothers was living here in Kigali, but in 1992 he succumbed to illness. Yet another was in Belgium, and it was only somewhat later the same year, 1992, that he too fell ill and passed away. The same end befell my father, who died as a result of illness in Butare in 1990. Yet another one of my sisters fell ill in 1993, and she too died. It was the genocide which robbed me of yet three more of my sisters. In fact, at the moment, I have only one sister, Agnes Umuguaneza, who is still alive. My mother too succumbed to disease after the war, though hers is a special case."

Indeed Augustin's own survival can be credited to a stroke of fate, which brought him to the Centre Mémorial de Gisimba and placed him under Gisimba's protection. "When the war started I left Butare and came to Kigali to look for my sisters. I had an uncle who had been living here for some time, and who I visited quite often, and so I knew the area well. Also one of my sisters had been working here at the orphanage for a couple of years before the Genocide began. When they began killing people in April, 1994, I came straight to the orphanage and my sister told me that I should stay here. She asked Mr. Gisimba for permission, and he promised to look after me.

All three of my sisters who perished during the genocide were married and living at Kigali. When the killing began, my sisters went home to be with their families. They were murdered at home along with their husbands and children. My mother too nearly died. She stayed in Butare and sent my sister Agnes to come join me and my other sister at the orphanage. During the slaughter my mother went with a lot of other people fleeing the Interahamwe [the Hutu paramilitaries] into a church where she hoped to take refuge. Instead, the Interahamwe came and killed just about everyone in the church. Later my mother told me that it was only by sheer chance that she survived.

While we were at the orphanage the militias came by quite often, but Mr. Gisimba always managed to protect us. During the entire genocide I stayed here with my two sisters. Life was extremely difficult. We were lucky to eat once a day, and then always in insufficient amounts. Also there was no water and we had to use and drink non-potable water. There were many people who suffered from severe diarrhea as a result. We all had fleas too in all of our clothing because it was impossible to wash, and we didn't have any other clothes.

Just before the end of the war we managed to escape to St. Michel's Cathedral in another area of Kigali. There we were finally able to begin living again. I was thirteen years old at the time, and we thought that there were only three of us left, me and my two sisters. Then one of the people working there informed me that my mother was still alive. We quickly went to visit her, and found her alive but traumatized and sick. My sister who was working at the orphanage got married around that time and she and her husband moved to Butare to look after my mother. Unfortunately, my mother soon passed away from her illness and from the trauma she had suffered. Then, my sister, who was taking care of her, fell ill too and died. So it was that I was left with just one sister out of so many.

I continued living at the Center and completed my primary studies and then my secondary studies (high school) at schools close by the orphanage. During my secondary studies I majored in Medicine and Hygiene. After I graduated I was out of work for a year and unable to pay the tuition at the university. Eventually I found part-time work in Gisenyi, where I live today. When there are epidemics, like cholera or tuberculosis, in the province of Gisenyi, I am called upon to write a report and affirm that there is a state of emergency. Thereafter the doctors are able to order the emergency medicine necessary to save these peoples' lives.

Thankfully there aren't too many epidemics, but when there are none, I am unemployed and have to figure out some way to live. In 2005, Orphans of Rwanda began to pay for my university tuition and I began to study management. I am living in Gisenyi to be close to work and studying at the Gisenyi campus of l'Université Libre de Kigali. I decided to study the latter because I enjoy math, and business and management has a lot of math. When I'm done with my studies I think I would like to do something in commerce, perhaps in the import export business.

First of all, I would like to thank all the people that have helped me. I've only been able to study my entire life because of the generosity of the donors who paid for my primary and secondary school education, and now for college. I cannot thank you enough."