This month marks the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. SERVE decided to dedicate this month's 'Focus On' in memory of all those who died, who were injured or who were affected during the genocide.
The genocide initiated on April 6th following the plane accident in which the President Habyarimana was killed. This incident sparked outrage and a huge outpouring of violence and disruption throughout Rwanda. Over the next 100 days, almost one million people were brutally murdered in what we now know as one of the 20th Century's bloodiest chapter.
In April 1994 Gerry O’ Connor, Director of SERVE was on a monitoring visit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Gerry was the treasurer for Irish NGO Goal, when he received a call asking for him to go to Rwanda. At the time, no one was aware of what was taking place in Rwanda as it was not broadcast in the Ethiopian media.
A few days after the genocide began, Gerry first entered Rwanda. In July when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took power and there was a “ mass exodus” into the Congo. Gerry went to Goma which had become home to almost two million people who fled across the border. Camps began to form along the border which brought with it an outbreak of cholera due to the lack of clean water and access to sanitation. Thousands of what seemed like perfectly healthy people in their teens and twenties were lying dead on the streets or close to death.
The first immediate intervention that Gerry and his colleagues undertook was to address the outbreak of cholera and other public health issues. There were public transport buses that had worked in Kigali and had carried people in the exodus out of the country. They were unused and so the GOAL team seized this opportunity to rent them. He transformed them in to mobile clinics. They travelled around the area rehydrating and offering medical interventions to treat the cholera.
To respond to the thousands of corpses, the second initiative was to bury the dead. Many agencies were slow to respond. “ The dead were not in their mandate”, Gerry remembers. Other agencies had different priorities but the dead were not among them. However, the presence of corpses were not only a health hazard, but they were demoralising the refugees who had fled across the border.
As the refugee crisis began to grow, they visited two of the camps. Gerry and his colleagues took responsibility for opening up two orphanages in large tents that could take in children who had either become separated or displaced, or where their parents had died from cholera. They could supply clean water and deliver adequate sanitation in these camps.
The situation was severe. Where there was already so much pain and distress, those who had escaped were now facing even more threats and obstacles for survival. Gerry describes it as “a situation of displaced refugees without homes, without health infrastructure, without water infrastructure, with a chronic cholera epidemic”. Along with the emergent health issues, the Interahamwe – the very people who had initiated genocide in April – were present in some camps. Those camps were dangerous, subject to violence and people were subject to intimidation. There was also efforts being made to make profit out of emergency aid. Gerry recalls how “It was a complex situation for aid workers because you were delivering emergency aid to innocent children and women… in camps which were effectively marshalled by the very people who began the genocide campaign”.
While Rwanda has shown phenomenal courage and progress, the wounds are still raw. There is a lot of misunderstanding, discrimination and disconnection between people because of their backgrounds.
Unlocking Horns: Reconciliation in Action
"The cows that live together will lock their horns"
-Burundian Proverb
Many families were torn apart during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The humanitarian aid agencies that had come to the region in response to the emergency saw that many thousands of children were alone. An intensive international effort immediately after the crisis reunited many with their families, however not everyone was reunited.
The following article is a transcript of a story told by Gerry that brings a touch of hope and joy as he fondly remembers a family that they met on the hills one morning;
“We came across a mother, father and 5 children. The parents were asleep together with their hands wrapped around their children. So we helped them to find a place to rest safely on a school floor. Their Dad, Edward spoke good English – he had been a teacher in Rwanda.
I recruited him as a book keeper and depended very heavily on him during that emergency. We helped that family move to Nairobi because they had some relatives there. They left on a cargo plane from Goma to Nairobi about six months into the crisis. Thereafter, whenever I knew that someone was going to Nairobi I sent them some personal support. For some time I had connection and communication with them, but it was before phones, Facebook and email, so it was more difficult then. I was then assigned to Brazil the following year where I spent two years. I often wondered what had happened to them, where they were, what had become of them as I had lost contact during my time in Brazil.
Two years ago I was at a conference in Nairobi, Kenya where there was a French speaking translator. I sat with the translator and started to tell them the story about the family that I had met when I was in Goma. He said “I know them, they’re in Nairobi”. The Dad Edward had died the year before but I was then reunited with
the family. I have quite a lot
Gerry O' Connor of communication with them and one of the sons is now in Syria working for the World Food Programme. He has also worked in Somalia. One of the other sons has his own recording studio.
It’s amazing for me that something like this could happen close to eighteen years after the events that took place in Rwanda. I often try to picture faces, people, voices and I am certain that if something like that happened you’d maintain contact more easily through Facebook, emails etc. Unfortunately that was impossible in those days.
It brings great joy to my heart that I have been reunited with them. I rejoice in it.” – Gerry O’ Connor
SERVE would like to acknowledge that the events of 1994 in Rwanda are traumatic and difficult to talk about. We would therefore like to express our deepest gratitude to Gerry O' Connor for taking the time to speak with us about his experiences from this time.
Yours in Solidarity,
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