How do you forgive a man who has killed all your loved ones? Rwanda’s reconciliation efforts have seen survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the tutsi living next to each other, healing and transforming. FORBES AFRICA travels to Bugesera to capture one such moving tale.



BY TESI KAVEN Photos by Ridhima Shukla



IT’S ONE THING TO FORGIVE a person who has committed a crime against you, and quite another to reconcile, live next to and even cultivate a strong friendship with the person, especially when he has horrifically claimed the lives of your entire family. 



This scenario is not strange in Rwanda, a country once torn apart by the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, when more than a million people lost their lives. This year, in April, Rwanda marked the 27th anniversary of the genocide, and reconciliation, though unfathomable at one point, has become a concept the country has become known for. On the outskirts of the capital city of Kigali, approximately a two-hour drive away, is a village with a rich history, one that’s not easily given away by the serene and beautiful surrounds. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:41% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51460 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Maria-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">Someone we thought was a friend offered to help us, but instead, he delivered my husband and children to the killers. – Maria Izagiriza</blockquote>




</div></div>



In what almost looks like a gated community, 110 houses stand at the Rweru Reconciliation Village in Bugesera District. To foster the concept of reconciliation, perpetrators and survivors of the genocide live next to each other. In this village, we meet Maria Izagiriza and Philbert Ntezirizaza. 



Targeted attacks against the Tutsi community had begun long before the 1994 genocide, resulting in mass killings and forced relocations. Among the many affected, was 63-year-old Izagiriza, who lost some of her siblings in killings in 1973 and later, her first husband. 



Widowed at a young age, she later remarried and moved from her birthplace to Bugesera district, where she gave birth to four children. News of the death of the then Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was delivered to Izagiriza by a neighbor on that fateful morning of April 7, 1994. She remembers it all as if it was yesterday. 



“My neighbor informed me that the president had died the night before and went on to say that my people were responsible for his death,” Izagiriza tells FORBES AFRICA. “My neighbor said my people and I would pay dearly for what we had done.” 



Indeed, nothing could have prepared Izagiriza, her family and millions of other Rwandans for the atrocities that took place over the next 100 days, following the death of Habyarimana. The militia descended on Izagiriza’s home that morning, killing all her livestock, burning down her house and beating her husband to a pulp, leaving him for dead. The children were miraculously spared. 



She managed to escape through a hole she had created in the mud wall of her kitchen. When night fell, she returned to her compound to get her husband and children. 



“Though breathing, my husband was so badly wounded and bleeding from all parts of his body,” she says, pausing to wipe the tears streaming down her tired face. 



”The children were scared stiff but unharmed.” With the help of her children, Izagiriza somehow managed to drag her injured husband to a hiding place where she felt they would all be safe. This would, however, be the last time she would see her husband and children alive. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51450" width="393" height="295" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4004-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 393px) 100vw, 393px" /></figure></div>



“Someone we thought was a friend offered to help us, but instead, he delivered my husband and children to the killers. Again, I managed to escape, but this time, with my four-month-old baby strapped to my back. That was the last time I saw my family alive.” 



Izagiriza’s family was led to a barricade where a group of young, blood-thirsty men were killing people. Among them that day was Ntezirizaza. He was only 18 years old at the time. Hatred for the Tutsi people, he says, was planted in him when he was still very young. 



“In 1994, I was a teenager, my body full of youthful vigor and my mind filled with a terrible ideology, fed to me since I was in elementary school,” Ntezirizaza tells FORBES AFRICA. “Our mindset at that time was more lethal than the machetes we carried.” 



Asked what happened to Izagiriza’s family, Ntezirizaza pauses, then, with a low voice and distant gaze, says: “We hacked her husband and eldest son to death and threw the remaining two children in a deep pit, alive. We knew they wouldn’t survive.” 



A while after the genocide, Ntezirizaza was sentenced to 12 years in prison, after confessing to his crimes. It was while in prison that he met with members of Prison Fellowship Rwanda (PFR), an NGO that sought to unite and reconcile Rwandans. 



“PFR helped us see how deadly the beliefs and ideologies we harbored were and the importance of seeking forgiveness from those we hurt,” he says. 



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile" style="grid-template-columns:42% auto"><figure class="wp-block-media-text__media"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-51455 size-full" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/IMG_4011-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">We have built nine reconciliation villages across the country, and they stand not only as a monument of Rwanda’s history but also as an example to future generations that unity and reconciliation can be achieved. – David Nsoro, the communication officer at Prison Fellowship Rwanda</blockquote>




</div></div>



In 2003, six years into his sentence, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame pardoned prisoners who had admitted to their crimes. Though free, guilt kept gnawing on Ntezirizaza’s conscience. 



“I felt like I had been released from one prison and walked straight into another. I had no peace, no rest.” Izagiriza, who had managed to escape to Burundi with her infant daughter, was now back in Rwanda, trying to pick up the pieces of what was left of her life. 



News had reached her while in Burundi that her family was no more, and she battled depression and suicidal thoughts. Just like Ntezirizaza, she met members of PFR, who at the time were building the Rweru Reconciliation Village, to help settle survivors whose property was destroyed and perpetrators who were coming out of prison but with nowhere to call home. Volunteers and pastors from the NGO counseled Izagiriza, helping her to come to terms with what had happened. 



“The PFR team helped me realize that forgiving and letting go was for my benefit. Mentally, they prepared me to meet and forgive Philbert,” she says. “But I must admit, it wasn’t easy.” 



As a sign of remorse for his actions, Ntezirizaza would work on Izagiriza’s farm under the cover of darkness. “I would prepare the farm for planting on one night, then plant the seeds the following night and water them the night after. I wanted to do what the children or husband I killed would have done had they been alive,” he says. 



Eventually, the two had a sit-down session and he narrated all that befell her family and asked to be forgiven. At present, the two are genuine friends. Izagiriza asked Ntezirizaza to be her daughter’s godfather at her baptism. When her daughter got married and walked down the aisle, he was there to witness it all.



The story of Izagiriza and Ntezirizaza may just be one story but it mirrors the experiences of many in the tiny East African hill country. 



It is echoed by countless other survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi who have chosen the path of unity and reconciliation, however difficult it has been. 



David Nsoro, the communication officer at PFR, says that seeing the survivors and perpetrators living together in harmony at the reconciliation villages is a huge milestone. 



“We have built nine reconciliation villages across the country, and they stand not only as a monument of Rwanda’s history but also as an example to future generations that unity and reconciliation can be achieved,” Nsoro tells FORBES AFRICA. In his address to the nation on the 27th commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi, Kagame emphasized on the transformation that had taken place not just in the country, but more in the hearts and minds of Rwandans. 



Said Kagame: “The immensity of what has been achieved is almost miraculous. The results are attested to by Rwandans, and indeed indisputable. But the intangible transformation which has taken place in the hearts and minds of our people is even more important.”

IMG_3989

A Story Of Reconciliation, Healing And Hope

plane-crash-651

Moments Before An Air Crash

At least 110 women are raped in South Africa. Every day.
There are many similar statistics, all pointing to the same stupefying fact – that South Africa is one of the most dangerous places for girls and women.
This writer too is a survivor of an episode of violence, which – ironically – happened the evening before the country celebrated Women’s Day (August 9) in 2014.
In South Africa, a strong patriarchal mind-set, coupled with the intersection of race, gender, class and other identities, influence gender-based violence. There is also a gross underreporting of such crimes.
In the following pages, two educated young women recount how they didn’t let their own experience of violence get them down.
Samantha Smit* (name changed to protect identity) and Bukelwa Moerane reside 40 kilometers from each other, one in the affluent area of Roodepoort, and the other in Diepsloot, a township in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. Their paths have never crossed, but destiny served them the same experience from hell – and they survived it.
<h2>Samantha Smit, 28</h2>
In 2013, three days after South Africa celebrated Women’s Day, Smit was drugged and raped by three male friends she had known for seven years. 
When we meet her on a warm Thursday evening in January, the neighborhood is quiet, and her home warm and secure with high security fences. Wearing an oversized t-shirt and jeans, she leads us to the pool area her father helps set up for us. 
Underneath Smit’s warm exterior is the aching heart of a woman still trying to comprehend a disturbing episode in her past. 
“When you read statistics about women who experience violence, whether it’s sexual violence, domestic abuse or interpersonal violence, I would think I was lucky to not have experienced anything before I was 18 years old. And [this state of the country] is a sad reality,” says Smit. 
What was an ordinary night out with friends ended up being her worst nightmare. 
“They asked us to come through to their flat which was nothing strange, because we have all been friends for a long time. We trusted them, we knew them and often went to each other’s houses.” 
They offered her a drink, which she didn’t know was spiked with Liquid E, a date rape drug. 
Fifteen minutes later, she felt dizzy. 
The next thing, they were stripping her in the kitchen and dragging her into the bedroom. 
“The more I put my clothes back on, the more they were taken off. They found it amusing,” she recalls. 
Smit was powerless at the time. 
“It was like a ragdoll effect. I knew it was happening, I didn’t black out, I didn’t lose consciousness. But I wasn’t able to do anything about it. I felt like I was looking into the situation. The next morning, I had a cup of coffee and left,” she tells us. 
She was in denial and did not want the stigma attached to being a victim. 
“I think a part of me knew all along, but did not want to accept it. I also felt like maybe if we don’t give it a name it won’t have the impact… Because at least you still have a little bit of power and it is not completely stripped from you,” she says. 
Her life was never to be the same again. 
“Suddenly I couldn’t stand people touching me. It would suddenly repulse me. I was startled incredibly easily,” she says. 
She suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and checked into a clinic five months after the incident. 
“It’s a difficult thing to admit to yourself… I realized I was spiralling out of control.” 
But she soon reclaimed her power by writing a letter to the three men and confronting them individually. 
Though the scar will never completely heal, counselling, and opening up to other women, has helped. 
“Every woman I opened up to had a similar story to share. That helped me a lot in breaking down the stigma.”
<h2>Bukelwa Moerane, 25</h2>
Moerane has been more vocal about her “near-death experience”. She lost her teeth trying to escape from her abductor in February last year. 
She was on her way home in a taxi one night from Maponya Mall in the township of Soweto. As she stepped out at the Bara taxi rank in Soweto, it was near empty; then out of the blue, a man driving a navy Polo came up from behind and shoved her into his vehicle. 
“What was going through my mind was ‘I don’t know if this guy has a gun behind me or a knife’. He said to me, ‘don’t do anything stupid, you will get hurt’. Instantly, as he said that, my mind stopped working,” shares Moerane. 
The abductor drove off with her, holding on tightly to her wrist. 
“He was swearing at me, and saying ‘I will rape you, I will kill you, don’t even try anything funny’!” 
Moerane started saying her last prayers thinking of her mother and four-year-old daughter. Then, she noticed the door was unlocked. 
“My heart started to beat faster. I started thinking ‘I need to get out, I need to get out, there is something I need to do’,” she says. 
The kidnapper headed down a dark road she knew. 
“I knew if he did something to me in that area, no one was going to find me. I know there are most [probably] thousands of bodies in that area not checked for. I was not going to be one of them,” says Moerane. 
She pretended to be relaxed. 
“I then looked at him, and noticed he was scared as well. His voice was shaking. I think he had gone through something and felt the need to revenge on me.” 
She was no longer frightened. 
“So if this person is scared, why should I be scared? I told myself to calm down and I started calming down, because he was holding on to my right hand at the time,” says Moerane. 
She somehow mustered the courage to jump out of the moving vehicle kicking the door until it opened. 
“He was slapping me and was trying to hold my hand. With the other hand, he was trying to drive and there was oncoming traffic.” 
Her biggest fear was for the kidnapper to grab a weapon and kill her, so she leapt out. She lost two of her front teeth, and was bruised and injured. 
“I could see my skin peeling off, and dark particles. My glasses fell off. While this car was dragging me, I don’t know for how long, I landed with my hands trying to protect my face, but I guess I was too late,” she says. 
Bleeding, she got back up and ran for her life. She tried to stop moving cars, pleading for help, but none did. At the nearest garage, she was taken to Baragwanath Hospital. 
Moerane still fears traveling by herself, but finds solace speaking out. 
She was a participant at the #NotInMyName march last year to the Union Buildings in South Africa’s capital Pretoria sparked by the death of Karabo Mokoena, the young woman allegedly stabbed 27 times by her ex-boyfriend. 
Moerane also took to Twitter to speak out against gender-based violence in the country. She posted images of her after the kidnapping and sought crowdfunding to fix her smile. 
That’s when celebrity dentist Alexander Faizi Rawhani, known as Dr Smile, helped put the smile back on her face. 
“I believe God kept me safe that time and he [the abductor] could do it again. But one thing I know is if he comes back, we go out together. I don’t go out alone. We die together this time,” says Moerane.
Physical violence against women 
• 21% of women over the age of 18 reported they had experienced violence at the hands of a partner. That’s one in five women. 
• Divorced or separated women are more likely to experience physical abuse. 
• The Eastern Cape has the highest rate of physical abuse (a whopping 32% women reporting it).
Sexual violence against women 
• 6% of women over the age of 18 reported they have experienced sexual violence. 
• 16% of divorced or separated women experienced sexual violence by a partner. 
• 10% of women living with a partner reported sexual violence against them. 
• The North West Province reported the highest rate of sexual violence (with 11.8% of women reporting). 
[Source: South Africa Demographic and Health Survey 2016]

Tag: Survivor

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

A Story Of Reconciliation, Healing And Hope

Moments Before An Air Crash

The Perilous Life Of A Woman In South Africa