In Rwanda, a country whose name has become synonymous with blood-letting horror stories, unspeakable atrocities were uncovered. As I reported in late May 1994, I had stumbled upon a massacre site in a small village in a remote part of eastern Rwanda. Anywhere from 500 to over two thousand and possibly even more people may have been killed in an orgy of violence that erupted in mid-April. This is what I reported:
On April 16th, 1994, witnesses say some 200 attackers from the government security forces and the Interahamwe, a predominantly Hutu ethnic extremist group, entered the small eastern Rwandan village of Nyarubuye and began killing members of the minority Tutsi community.
The victims were not only residents of Nyarubuye but included many from nearby villages who had come to take shelter in a large church complex -- a complex made up of several buildings: the church itself, offices, a school, workshops, stalls and other structures.
Before the slaughter was over, an estimated 500 people lay dead in and around the complex, many blasted with shotguns, others hacked with machetes. Residents said hundreds more were then tracked down and killed -- some in their homes, others in the fields as they tried to flee down a sloping hillside that leads to the Akagera river, and nearby neighboring Tanzania.
The bodies of many of these victims were said to have been thrown into pits and then covered with dirt. Krisustum Gatunzi, an elderly Hutu man who lived with his wife in Nyarubuye, watched the killings. Speaking through an interpreter, he said he personally saw friends and neighbors slaughtered with machetes: "he's saying its unbelievable to see your neighbors, friends being hacked to death...these people (killers) are saying they want to create a new Rwanda and he was asking them, do you create a new Rwanda by killing everybody inside that Rwanda or by killing neighbors and friends? He's saying, an expression for it, 'feeling yourself hacked', as you see each person hacked, you feel yourself hacked. I was feeling myself hacked."
The old man and his wife were being cared for by a nine-year-old grandson. He brought them food, water and firewood. He cooked for them, too. Yet the elderly couple, despite their infirmity, was credited with helping save one young Tutsi woman, a 27-year-old neighbor named Consolata Mukatwagirimana who they helped hide. She said her entire family may have been slaughtered in the April killing spree -- some in their homes, others as they fled.
She heard their screams:
"I had taken cover in the nearby bush. All I know is I was hearing my family being massacred, shooting and cries, screams but I managed to come out in the evening and checked and found everybody who was at home was killed, dead -- except those few who managed to break away, to run away before the killing was on. Those are the people I cannot account for now. I wonder whether they made it or whether they also were killed."
The woman said she had heard threats before from Hutu extremists but thought they were just words. She now knows she was terribly wrong. The massacre in Nyarubuye was just one of many uncovered in Rwanda since the latest blood-letting began in early April 1994 when President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed. His plane was apparently shot down as he returned from peace talks in neighboring Tanzania. Officials of the rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front say Mr. Habyarimana was killed because of the peace-and-power-sharing agreement he had signed with the predominantly Tutsi rebels the year before. His death, many observers now believe, was the signal for mainly Hutu extremists who opposed any rapprochement with the rebels to launch the wave of killings.
On April 16th, 1994, witnesses say some 200 attackers from the government security forces and the Interahamwe, a predominantly Hutu ethnic extremist group, entered the small eastern Rwandan village of Nyarubuye and began killing members of the minority Tutsi community.
The victims were not only residents of Nyarubuye but included many from nearby villages who had come to take shelter in a large church complex -- a complex made up of several buildings: the church itself, offices, a school, workshops, stalls and other structures.
Before the slaughter was over, an estimated 500 people lay dead in and around the complex, many blasted with shotguns, others hacked with machetes. Residents said hundreds more were then tracked down and killed -- some in their homes, others in the fields as they tried to flee down a sloping hillside that leads to the Akagera river, and nearby neighboring Tanzania.
The bodies of many of these victims were said to have been thrown into pits and then covered with dirt. Krisustum Gatunzi, an elderly Hutu man who lived with his wife in Nyarubuye, watched the killings. Speaking through an interpreter, he said he personally saw friends and neighbors slaughtered with machetes: "he's saying its unbelievable to see your neighbors, friends being hacked to death...these people (killers) are saying they want to create a new Rwanda and he was asking them, do you create a new Rwanda by killing everybody inside that Rwanda or by killing neighbors and friends? He's saying, an expression for it, 'feeling yourself hacked', as you see each person hacked, you feel yourself hacked. I was feeling myself hacked."
The old man and his wife were being cared for by a nine-year-old grandson. He brought them food, water and firewood. He cooked for them, too. Yet the elderly couple, despite their infirmity, was credited with helping save one young Tutsi woman, a 27-year-old neighbor named Consolata Mukatwagirimana who they helped hide. She said her entire family may have been slaughtered in the April killing spree -- some in their homes, others as they fled.
She heard their screams:
"I had taken cover in the nearby bush. All I know is I was hearing my family being massacred, shooting and cries, screams but I managed to come out in the evening and checked and found everybody who was at home was killed, dead -- except those few who managed to break away, to run away before the killing was on. Those are the people I cannot account for now. I wonder whether they made it or whether they also were killed."
The woman said she had heard threats before from Hutu extremists but thought they were just words. She now knows she was terribly wrong. The massacre in Nyarubuye was just one of many uncovered in Rwanda since the latest blood-letting began in early April 1994 when President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed. His plane was apparently shot down as he returned from peace talks in neighboring Tanzania. Officials of the rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front say Mr. Habyarimana was killed because of the peace-and-power-sharing agreement he had signed with the predominantly Tutsi rebels the year before. His death, many observers now believe, was the signal for mainly Hutu extremists who opposed any rapprochement with the rebels to launch the wave of killings.
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