A welcoming home for Rwandan elderly who lost family in genocide

Glory Iribagiza

THERESE UZABAKIRIHO, 64, was married with four children and another on the way during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

They were all killed, save for the baby she was expecting, who also died immediately after birth.

“She was affected by the deep fear and sorrow I had, so she died,” Uzabakiriho explained, adding that it was due to a heart problem the baby was born with.

Uzabakiriho, who was seven months pregnant, had gone to visit her younger sister the day before the genocide started in her home town, in Gisagara, located in the south part of the country.

They killed her mother and younger sister immediately, while she hid in a forest.

She later got lucky to be hidden by a local leader who was Hutu, for a month.

But when the militia learnt of this, they went to collect her.

The local leader, who hid only her, committed genocide crimes and is now in prison, serving his sentence.

She was taken to a group of hundreds of other Tutsi who were waiting to be killed.

They were forced to walk to their slaughter, being beaten all the way.

The killers had also stripped everyone naked, and they were making fun of their bodies.

“They took us to Akanyaru River and chopped people with machetes before throwing them in. When they cut me on my face, I threw myself in the river, and the water threw me in Burundi, where their soldiers would bend long papyrus bushes for anyone who was alive to pull them out of the water. They pulled me out, naked with my pregnancy,” Uzabakiriho narrated.

She was taken to the hospital in Ngozi, before going to a refugee camp and eventually returning to Rwanda when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took power.

“I then gave birth to a beautiful baby that I named Uwarokotse (the one who survived), but she died immediately, and I was left alone,” she added.

Uzabakiriho would later learn that her three children and husband were killed by their neighbour in Huye, where they lived.

She was hoping that at least one of them had survived.

She traces her suffering from 1973, when she was just a student.

The teachers would ask the Tutsi, Hutu and Twa to take turns standing in order to be identified.

“There were only four of us in the class. I remember that the last time I went to school in that year, the teacher asked the Hutu children that ‘if the time to kill them comes, will there be enough for each one of us?’” Uzabakiriho recalled.

She added: “One of my classmates then responded that it wouldn’t be a problem because each one of them would at least chop a finger off.

“When I returned home, I told my parents what had happened, and they told me to never go back to school.”

After the genocide, Uzabakiriho’s life would never be the same.

She developed a mental health problem that deeply affected her, as she would have episodes and run in the streets, kilometres away from her house.

She was living alone, so who would even know she left?

“The world ended for me. I don’t know how it went, but I think I was traumatised from the things I saw and went through during the Genocide,” Uzabakiriho explained.

Today, she lives with almost 100 other older persons in Huye District, a three-hour drive from Kigali, in Impinganzima Hostel for older persons who are sole survivors of the genocide in their families.

A person is regarded as a sole survivor, or “inshike”, when they lost all their children and partner.

Uzabakiriho, who further developed diabetes, has been taken care of, free of charge, since 2019.

Her mental health has also improved through psychotherapy and medication.

“I love being with others. We talk to each other about what we went through, because we are in the same condition. We have moved on from what happened to us during the genocide.

“Our grief has tremendously reduced through praying together,” she explained.

She believes that without Impinganzima, she would have died and eaten by rats, as no one would have found out.

Her friends at the hostel say the same thing.

Callixte Rubonezangabo, 86, was almost dying when he joined the home.

“I had fallen very sick, without anyone to take care of me. Our local leader came to visit once and was shocked at the condition he found me in.

“He said he was going to bring me here because I would have died without a single person to bury me,” he narrated.

When he got to Impinganzima, it was discovered that he had suffered from high blood pressure and needed urgent attention.

“Despite the sickness, I am doing well now,” he added.

Rubonezangabo’s wife and three children were all killed in the genocide.

He remarried and had a child, but her second wife left him under the influence of her family that had taken part in the killings.

Their child would die shortly after birth.

Scholastic Mukabuhigiro, 70, commonly called Schola by her friends at the home, believes she got herself a new family to talk to and spend quality time with.

“Because of therapy, I am getting better. Before, I wouldn’t even know what day it was.

“I couldn’t sleep for years, and as a result, I suffered from migraines. Any noise felt like a gunshot in my heart,” she explained.

Mukabuhigiro’s husband and son were killed together during the genocide.

Delphine Muterambabazi, the coordinator of the hostel, said that most of the people there joined in 2017.

Because this model was new, the prospective residents had many questions about their new life.

Nevertheless, she acknowledges a big difference between the conditions in which they came in and how they are doing now.

“They were afraid at first because they had to leave homes they have lived in for many years. They wondered how they would be welcomed, if they will find people like them, or if they will be well taken care of,” Muterambabazi said.

When asked what makes them happy at the hostel, all the interviewed said, among others, their coordinator. They credit her for the comfort they get, which has tremendously changed their life.

“Many of them are weak when we receive them, some are very sick, and with heavy grief. When they get here and make new friends, they eventually learn that they are not the only ones who faced the tragedy of losing all family members, and they help each other heal,” Muterambabazi added.

Every year, the hostel holds a special commemoration for the members of each resident’s family killed in the genocide.

Unity Club, an organisation founded by the First Lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame, together with other partners, built the Impinganzima Hostels to further look after vulnerable genocide survivors who did not have anyone to take care of them in 2017.

The model is in four districts of the country, and the majority of the beneficiaries are women.

The hostel in Huye, whose specialty is palliative care, has 98 residents, seven of whom are men.

The oldest resident is 106 years old.

Rwanda has two public holidays mourning the genocide. The national mourning period begins with Kwibuka (Remembrance), the national commemoration, on April 7 and concludes with Liberation Day on July 4.