Immaculée Mukantaganira laying wreath on a US Embassy remembrance stone of its workers killed during the 1994 Genocide of Tutsis
Immaculée lost her husband in the terrible massacre of Rwandan Tutsis in 1994, as the US Embassy to Kigali commemorated and honored their 25 workers killed during the mayhem on 12th April 2012; she had been invited to give testimony about how life was then.
As Rwandans gather to mourn their lost loved ones during the Genocide, womenhall.com has decided to share Mukantaganira’s story excerpts as part of putting to record the inhuman, injustice, torture and all kinds of crimes against humanity committed during the 1994 Genocide against Tutsis.
“As the Interahamwe (Genocide perpetuators) approached our home with chanting songs of Tutsis must die, Hutu power, our life was threatened and we escaped to Gitarama hoping to flee to Burundi through Butare district. However we did not manage to cross Butare.
At Butare, Spending a number of miserable days on the way, we managed to secure a shelter in house that had about 20 people. One day, Interahamwe came and picked one by one of us, all being taken to a neighbor forest to be killed. It is then that I lost saw my husband but hoped to see him again.
In the forest, despite the infringed torture I managed to escape the Interahamwe. When the RPF risked their lives and secured us, I walked in the corpses hoping to see my husband again, I checked and checked corpses in search of him in vain nor did I see my two children, I was a walking corpse.” Mukantaganira’s narrates.
