Rwanda: Struggle for survival in child-headed households

Janine Umuhoza was seven years old in April 1994 when her parents were killed during the genocide in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus died. On that fateful day, she bade the usual farewell to her parents before setting off to school. Later, Hutu militiamen marched onto their home compound and killed her mother, father and other members of the family. However, her two younger brothers and two sisters survived. As the eldest, and a lot sooner than she could have imagined, she became mother to her siblings in a country fraught with danger at the time.