Seven people were killed every minute between April and June 1994 in what will be remembered as Africa’s largest genocide in modern times.
Twenty years on, the Order of Malta, which was among the first to answer the cries for help, is calling for an international pledge to prevent similar incidents.
“Commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide is an important occasion to reflect on the role the international community must play in preventing such dreadful crimes,” the Order’s Humanitarian Affairs Minister, Albrecht von Boeselager, said.
The Order would continue to build bridges of dialogue, the Grand Hospitaller added, noting the importance of diplomacy in facing 21st century challenges.
Even churches became a stage to horrible massacres
In April 1994, members of the Hutu majority in Rwanda organised the mass slaughter of the Tutsi minority. In just 100 days, more than 800,000 (reportedly up to a million) Tutsi were slaughtered. Neighbours attacked neighbours a1nd churches became stages for massacres. Although Rwanda had a turbulent history of ethnic tension, the slaughter shocked the world.
The genocide was sparked by the death of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, whose plane was shot down above Kigali airport on the evening of April 6.
Johan Bultinck was in Butare, Rwanda, when the aircraft was shot down. The following morning his team put their heads together to organise the relief efforts. “My legs started shaking. I sensed that the situation was really, really bad. The massacres kept spreading, also towards Butare. I was constantly in touch with friends in Kigali. Day after day, their voices sounded more and more desperate: they saw bodies piled up on pickup trucks driving through the streets of Kigali. Soon, the first injured started to arrive with machete wounds and we treated them.”
But the Rwandan authorities told foreigners to leave the country and when he returned to Belgium he understood the scale of the situation. He returned to Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to care for Rwandan refugees.
“They desperately needed psychological support because many were traumatised by the horrific events and were suffering from mental disorders.” This marked the beginning of a psychiatric centre called the Sosame, with which Malteser International – the Order’s humanitarian relief agency – cooperates until this day.
Former director of Malteser Germany’s foreign aid service Martin Pfeifer was on the ground some months after the genocide and met “incredible brutality”.
“People carrying machetes everywhere and even churches became a stage to horrible massacres. Bodies were thrown in wells. A horrid stench hung in the air. I ran into people everywhere with infected, untreated wounds spread over their entire bodies.”
For five months, staff and volunteers provided medical care for 30,000 refugees in three camps in north Rwanda. The biggest problem remained the supply of drinking water. Between July and November, aid workers in Bukavu produced more than 20 million litres of potable water for the refugees.Mr Pfeifer recalls it was a logistical nightmare because there were practically no streets to the camps. But Order of Malta volunteers from Germany, France and Belgium worked together – a great sign of the international solidarity.
Meanwhile, in Kiziguro, north of Kigali, the Order started the rehabilitation of the local medical facilities and in the regions of Goma and Bukavu in the DR Congo it re-established water plants and provided medical emergency relief.
The work continued in 1996 and 1997, when fighting between the Congolese army and Hutu rebels saw more than a million Rwandan refugees fleeing the camps in DR Congo and Tanzania.
“The Rwandan genocide was one of the most atrocious crimes against humanity of all times. We have to do everything in our power to prevent such crimes from ever happening again,” Mr Pfeifer added.