Pictures of people killed during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide at the Gisozi memorial in Kigali, Rwanda. Photo: Radu Sigheti/Reuters

Refugee Day 2014, on June 20, brings to mind the 20th anniversary of one of the most horrendous genocides and refugee-producing tragedies in human history. It happened in Rwanda and went on for 100 days, from April 6 to July 16, 1994. Between 800,000 and one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred.

More than six men, women and children were murdered every minute of every hour of every day of those terrible 100 days. Moreover, between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped and more than half of them were infected with HIV and AIDS. In many cases, this resulted from a systematic and planned use of rape by HIV+ men as a weapon of genocide.

A very small number of individuals who managed to escape from the hell of the genocide and its aftermath reached Malta in due course. At the time, I was the head of the Refugee Section of the Emigrants’ Commission, which was the UNHCR’s operational partner in Malta. The individuals applied for refugee protection and the duty to hear their shocking accounts fell on me. Their stories remain among the ones I can never forget.

In 1894, Germany colonised Rwanda. In 1918, the Belgians assumed control of the country. Fifteen years later, the Belgians held a census and mandated that everyone be issued an identity card. People were classified as either Hutu, Tutsi or Twa. These were the largest ethnic groups in Rwanda. The Tutsis were in power.

In 1959, a Hutu rebellion began against the Tutsis and the Belgians. In January 1961, the Tutsi monarchy was abolished. On July 1, 1962, Rwanda became independent with a Hutu, Gregoire Kayibanda, as president. Many Tutsis left the country.

In 1973, Juvénal Habyarimana took control of Rwanda in a bloodless coup. Five years later, a new Constitution was ratified and Habyarimana was elected president.

In 1988, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), mainly Tutsi, came into being in Uganda. Most of the RPF fighters were people, or their sons, who had fled ethnic purges by the Hutu government in the middle of the century.

That same year, some 50,000 Hutu people fled to Rwanda from Burundi following ethnic violence there.

In 1990, the RPF, dominated as it was by the Tutsi group, invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda. A civil war broke out. In 1993, a power-sharing agreement was signed by Habyarimana with the Tutsis, supposedly signalling the end of civil war. Yet, problems were far from over.

In the beginning of the 1990s, Rwanda’s population of seven million was composed of Hutu (approximately 85 per cent), Tutsi (14 per cent) and Twa (one per cent). At the time, Hutu extremists within Rwanda’s political elite started blaming the entire Tutsi minority population for the country’s increasing social, economic and political pressures.

In April 1994, Habyarimana and the Burundian president were killed when their plane was shot down. The mysterious act served as a catalyst for genocide.

The RPF launched a major offensive while extremist Hutu militia and elements of the Rwandan military began the systematic massacre of Tutsis. People started to flee. Many failed to avoid the outrageous killings. Others were able to somehow make it to survival. Among the latter, there was Yolande Mukagasana, a Tutsi nurse from Kigali, born on September 6, 1954. She managed to flee to Belgium, where she was granted refugee status in 1995.

In her book La mort ne veut pas de moi (Death does not want me), Mukagasana recounts how she survived while her husband, three children and many of her relatives and friends died. She hid in the bushes and behind anything that came in handy.

Her testimony and the testimonies she compiled indicate the complex aspects of the Rwandan genocide.

Mukagasana points to the ethnic quotas policy that was introduced after Rwanda’s independence in 1961, which caused a large outflow of refugees to neighbouring countries. She also shows the complexity of the genocide that took place, where henchmen and victims shared the same language, religion, culture and were often living side by side. Moreover, the perpetrators were often victims of their own acts.

A very small number managed to escape and reached Malta in due course

“I was saved by a Hutu,” she says.

Following her flight to Belgium, Mukagasana adopted her younger brother’s three children, who were left without their parents. In time, she could return to Rwanda, where she gave her house to three orphans and hopes it will remain open for others in need.

She also sought to build a memorial there for children who were killed in Rwanda, as “no one remained alive to testify in my village”.

Mukagasana interviewed both victims and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide. This material was displayed in a travelling exhibition, Les blessures du silence, (The wounds of silence), organised by her together with Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

Two of the testimonies, taken from the 2001 edition of the exhibition, are those of Evariste and Clemence. Evariste, who at the time was 15, was interviewed in a prison in Butare (Karubanda).

“A group of killers came to get me at my house. They told me to come with them. I refused. But they threatened to kill my mother, who is Tutsi, if I didn’t go. So I got scared and I went with them. They showed me three children to kill. I refused but a neighbour forced me to take a machete. I still refused but I was struck. So I took it. I killed the children. I had no choice,” he recounted.

Asked whether he knew these children, Evariste replied: “Yes, they were our next-door neighbours. They used to come to eat with my parents and I went to their house… Their mother was the one who had me put in prison. The friendship between the two families is broken.”

The court decided that Evariste had to do rehabilitation.

As to the man who forced him to kill, Evariste said: “I was one of the witnesses against him because he killed me too. I’m not a child any more, I’m a killer.”

Clemence, 24, was a survivor from Nyamata. She had this to say:

“We all fled to the church. The Interahamwe (a Hutu paramilitary group) were around us but did not speak to us. Soldiers encircled us, saying they would protect us. We were very happy. But the following Sunday, the soldiers and the Interahamwe got together to murder us. I fainted from the blow of a club. I woke up in the evening amidst the bodies of my family.

“Everyone was naked, like me. I hid in a field of sorghum. After three days, I was hungry and I went towards my house. I may have walked four kilometres, still naked. I hid in the shrubs whenever I saw people.

“When I got home, I saw that the house had been destroyed and I asked our Hutu neighbours for something to eat. They laughed. They called others. I was surrounded and forced to sit on the floor. People were laughing, asking me where my family was. I didn’t answer. I hid my breasts with my arms. Finally, one of them took me away and locked me up, still naked, in a room with no windows. During the day, he killed. In the evening he beat me and raped me.

“When I became pregnant, first I was ashamed. But today, I must say that this child is the only treasure I have. I called her Umumararungu – the one who cures my loneliness.”