Eugenie Mukampagaze

I was born and raised in Gitarama, a province in central Rwanda. I am not sure who my real father is. I met my supposed father only once. I believe he was a driver. My mother later married another man. After that, I lived with my stepfather, my mother, my brother and half-sister until my mother and stepfather separated. My mother did not attend secondary school and consequently, she was unemployed.

After my stepfather left, my family moved in with my maternal grandmother. We lived there until 1994, when the genocide started. We had great financial difficulties during this time, but I remember how much our mother loved us. Despite these difficulties, I was very happy as a child. Within her limited means, my mother did everything she could to ensure that our basic needs were met. This made me feel secure and cared for.

Every member of my immediate family, and some members of our extended family, who we were living with, were killed during the genocide. I lost my mother, my brother, my grandmother, three cousins, an uncle and his wife. The Interhamwe militia usually killed all the men and boys before starting to kill women and girls, so my mother ran far away with my brother to hide him. I was left with my two cousins, their father and another aunt. A militia member offered to hide us but one night, he called soldiers to come kill us. My cousins were very young - one was five years old and the youngest was three. I was almost eleven years old at the time. The night that he told on us, I heard a group of people enter the house and I hid in the trough used for storing beans. My cousins were too young to go along with me and as a result, they were discovered by soldiers and killed with machetes.

That night, I walked all night to my mother's aunt's house. I found some family members there, hiding outside close to the house. After some time, two of my three cousins left to hide elsewhere. I stayed at that location with the third. I hid with him in a banana plantation with nothing to eat or drink. My mother's cousin soon became quite sick. One night, he told me he was going to leave- he figured that he was so ill that it would make no difference if he was found and killed by the Interahamwe. That morning, he left our hideout and walked a short distance into a clearing where he was spotted by a group of Interahamwe soldiers who killed him. I saw this from my hiding place.

The following day, my mother and brother found me. Other family members had told them where I was hiding. My brother was disguised as a girl and wearing a dress. My mother's arm was badly broken as a result of a severe beating that she had received. She decided to hide my brother a bit further from where I was because he could not risk being seen. The following day, the Interhamwe spotted my uncle who had apparently also been hiding nearby. I watched as they killed him in the same spot where they had killed my cousin.

A day later, I heard my brother calling out to me but remained hidden for fear of being seen. He later found me and told me that our mother was dying (she had wounds all over her arms and legs), and asked me to go and see her for the last time. I told my brother to return to her and that I would follow soon after. However, before I could get there, a group of soldiers spotted the two of them. The soldiers tried to move them out of their hiding place and beat my mother badly because she couldn't walk properly. I saw them put both my mother and brother in a car. This was the last time I ever saw either of them. They were taken away to be killed. I didn't actually witness the killing, but I am certain that that is what happened. I stayed in my hideout for a few more weeks and later approached a family living in a nearby house to ask for food and a hiding place. They agreed at first, but after two days asked me to leave because they were afraid of being discovered and killed for helping me. I continued to hide nearby. About a month after they'd taken my mother and brother away, the genocide ended. There must have been many things that my mother had wanted to tell me when I was older: there are many things that I don't know about my father, the circumstances of my birth and so on. I will always regret that I never got to see my mother that last time.

After the genocide, I was seen by a soldier who claimed to know my father and offered to take me to him. I followed him, but it turned out that he was actually referring to my former stepfather who he had mistaken for my biological father. My stepfather had three wives and I was sent to live with one of his other families. I was severely mistreated there and forced to become a domestic servant. I continued to study hard at school but I was miserable and cried constantly. The family eventually stopped allowing me to go to school and forced me to devote all my time to household chores. Because I spoke French fairly well - which was unusual for a child my age going to school in a rural area - my teachers respected me and one of them came by the house to investigate why I had disappeared from school. He offered to fund my studies if finances were the problem. In response, my stepfather accused me of having a sexual relationship with my teacher and told me that if I accepted his offer I would have to move out. Despite these threats, I returned to school but was beaten every day when I came home. My stepfather withdrew me from school again in my sixth year of primary school - the year the national primary school exam is administered to determine admission to secondary school. However, I managed to take the exam the following year and passed it with a good score.

I was severely traumatized by the genocide and developed severe headaches in secondary school. I was forced to sleep outside in the yard and often spent whole nights without sleeping because of depression. I also had to do farm work before going to school and was always late for school because the plot of land was quite a distance away. I walked to school barefoot. During this time, I often thought about my future and wished I had someone to advise me.

I decided to move to my stepbrother's house to continue my secondary school education in Kigali. I was as ill-treated there as I had been at his father's house. While living with my stepbrother, I met a lady who visited my school and told us that she wanted to help genocide orphans. I approached her and explained my situation to her. I waited anxiously to see if she could help me. The lady later returned with some Swiss and Italian volunteers who took me to live with them and three other orphaned boys. The three boys were soon taken to Switzerland for medical care and trauma treatment. These volunteers worked with a Rwandese lady called Constance who was interested only in helping Hutu orphans and disliked me because of my ethnicity. Around this time, I started experiencing prolonged dizziness, nosebleeds and my face began to swell. The volunteers began making arrangements to send me to Switzerland for treatment, but Constance did everything she could to prevent this from happening. The volunteers soon had to leave Rwanda, but left money for my studies and living expenses with Constance who became my custodian. However, after their departure, she refused to give me this money, which I desperately needed for the following academic year. She would only fund schooling for the two Hutu orphans in her custody.

A male colleague of Constance's later called me over to his office and offered to fund my studies in exchange for sexual favors. I refused his offer and stayed out of school for three months. Then I moved to a group of houses in Kigali set up by the UNDP for genocide orphans. I lived there with a university student who was working part-time. She was occasionally able to give me money for school materials, but my attendance was erratic because I did not have a dependable source of funding. I later managed to secure funding from FARG (a government-run genocide survivors fund) to complete my secondary school studies. Soon afterward, my housemate went to live with a family and I was forced to move out because the house had been officially assigned to her. I moved in with a former classmate's family. They were extremely poor and often lacked basic necessities such as food and soap, but they were kind to me.

One day, I decided to go to Gisimba Memorial Center (GMC). I told my story to a staff member there who told me to be patient while they tried to work something out for me. I continued staying with my friend's family until I was called in for an interview with Orphans of Rwanda for a university scholarship. Today, I live in the Kacyiru neighborhood of Kigali with some other orphans who are also supported by ORI. I enjoy their company and fellowship. I am studying sociology at the UniversitÈ Libre de Kigali (ULK). By pursuing sociology, I hope to gain insight into how people can live amicably together, and learn how to listen to people and help them with their problems. After I complete my studies, I plan to find a job that will involve helping people with problems similar to mine.

I used to be a member of a traditional dancing troupe but these days I am focusing on my studies. Church activities are now my only extracurricular activity. In the future, I hope to have a good job and a family of my own. I would advise others who have lost their families not to resort to risky and desperate measures to survive. The fact that one has lost one's family is not a reason to lose hope. I believe that God has a plan for me. I believe that He loves me.

I would like to thank all of ORI's donors for their support. I am praying for all of them and pray that God will continue to bless them. I cannot express how grateful I am for their help.