Rwanda: Left To Die At ETO And Nyanza

Left To Die At ETO And Nyanza

The Stories of Rwandese Civilians Abandoned
by UN Troops on 11 April 1994

Press Release: A New 112 Page Report by African Rights

Strictly embargoed until 11 April 2001, at 00 : 01 hours

For further information, please contact in Kigali:

Rakiya Omaar : (+ 250) 7 76 76

As Rwanda marks its seventh year since the tragedy of the 1994 genocide, and mourns the victims, the international community must once again confront the enormity of its failure to intervene in 1994. Recently, investigations and apologies have acknowledged that much more could have been done to halt the slaughter, and there does seem to be increased determination to learn lessons from Rwanda. This is to be welcomed, but it provides little comfort to the survivors. Time has stood still for them; their lives remain shrouded in the horror and loss they experienced during the genocide. Public admissions made since the genocide have merely confirmed to these grieving men, women and children that decision-makers as far away as New York and Brussels knowingly left them to face hell on earth alone.
African Rights’ latest report, Left to Die at ETO and Nyanza, is about people whose lives did not matter enough in international terms, and whose deaths have become the statistics to prove this fact. The survivors of these massacres continue to believe that they were abandoned to the killers because they were “never regarded as human beings.” Listening to their accounts of how the troops of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) left them to die at the hands of waiting mobs of killers, it is easy to understand why. The testimonies given by individuals who encountered unimaginable cruelty, withstood hideous injuries and watched their loved ones die, make unbearable reading. Just how immense these losses were is made clear not only by the testimonies, but by the beginnings of a census of the dead, which is included in this report.
The survivors remain in despair. A process of reflection and reform has now been recognized as necessary to ensure that the failings of 1994 are not repeated. But without efforts to ease the ongoing suffering of survivors, such a commitment will appear hollow. The refugees at ETO and Nyanza had the right to expect the UN troops to do all they could to protect them. The survivors of the massacres they allowed to happen are now right to demand accountability.
The UN was warned of the preparations for genocide as early as January 1994, but officials sought to preserve the organization’s neutrality and chose not to intervene. When the plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down on 6 April, the UN had 2,165 peacekeeping troops on the ground. They had been there since late 1993 to police the implementation of the Arusha Accords signed in August 1993 to end the war between Habyarimana’s government and the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). Yet, when the crisis broke, the UNAMIR soldiers proved irrelevant. They became bystanders to the genocide, protecting only expatriates and a very small number of Rwandese. The recognition that UNAMIR troops did manage to save some lives,and that there are examples of individual soldiers who acted with tremendous courage or compassion, cannot prevent the conclusion that their mission was a disaster.
This report gives a detailed account of an incident which has already been the subject of intense criticism¾the hasty departure of the Belgian UNAMIR soldiers stationed at a school in Kigali, the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO). Displaced people flocked to ETO in the belief that the UNAMIR forces would offer them protection from the killers intent upon genocide. Most of the refugees were Tutsis—the targets of the genocide—but also included Hutu politicians who belonged to the opposition and their families. At the time they were not aware that the political will was lacking for a mission to defend them. They also did not realize that the evacuation of expatriates was the focus of international concern in these crucial early days of the mass killings. They discovered the reality when, on 11 April 1994, the Belgian troops deserted them without warning, without taking a single precaution for their safety. Survivors give graphic descriptions of the massacre by the interahamwe militia which immediately followed. They then describe a second bloodbath at Nyanza later that day where most of the remaining ETO refugees, who numbered over 2,500, were slaughtered. Most of those who survived were saved by RPF soldiers who were waging war against the government Rwandese Armed Forces (FAR) for the area¾which they later won. It is appalling to realize that had the UNAMIR troops left a day later, many more people would have been saved.
UNAMIR soldiers left ETO on the 11th in part because they had a mission to evacuate a group of Belgians elsewhere in the country. Significantly, they left as soon as the expatriates who had been under their protection at the school were evacuated by French troops. Several reasons apparently lie behind the decision by the Belgian command to pull out. UNAMIR peacekeepers were overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster; they lacked understanding of the political situation; they were constrained by their mandate; and they had little time to consider. Moreover, they were aware that the entire UNAMIR mission hung in the balance and that Belgium would soon declare its intention to withdraw all its troops from Rwanda.
The background to UNAMIR’s pullout from ETO is examined in The Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda which was commissioned by the Secretary General and published on 15 December 1999. This report scrutinizes the UN response to the genocide in its entirety and exposes mistakes made at every level of the organization. It also reveals how Western economic and political influence, and considerations about what the Western public “will tolerate,” shaped the decisions made when the genocide was unleashed.
African Rights is publishing survivors’ accounts of the massacres at ETO and Nyanza more than a year after the Independent Inquiry report as a reminder of the importance of its findings and recommendations and to highlight the need to act upon them. Although the UN panel never lost sight of the human consequences of the disastrous UNAMIR mission, and showed sensitivity to the pain of survivors, its mandate was to establish how such a failure occurred within the UN system. Left to Die reveals the breadth and depth of the suffering that emerged directly from that failure, and its enduring nature. There are parallels between the tragedy at ETO and Nyanza and the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in the UN designated “safe area” of Srebrenica in July 1995. In both cases UN peacekeepers failed to protect civilians who were brutalized and killed in large numbers. The stories of the survivors of Srebrenica have shocked people all over the world. This report aims to give voice to the survivors of the massacres at ETO and Nyanza. The full horror of their experiences is little known.

Fleeing to ETO

To people whose lives were under threat at home, the school, a base for UNAMIR soldiers, seemed to represent their best hope of survival. Residents of the communes of Kicukiro, Kimihurura and other parts of Kigali made their way to ETO, which is situated in Kicukiro. They went in large groups of friends and neighbours, as families and individually. They took extreme risks to reach the school¾some were killed along the way, while others arrived at the gates running, with militiamen in pursuit. ETO had been a place of sanctuary in the past, as it was run by Catholic Salesian priests. But above all it was the presence of the peacekeepers that drew people to the school between 7-11 April 1994. People went there because they believed UNAMIR would shield them from the violence.
Florence Kabazayire and her husband were among the first to arrive at ETO—both worked as teachers at the school and lived near it, in cellule Gatare. Unsettled by the soldiers swarming all over their neighbourhood on the 7th, they decided to leave for ETO at the end of the day and reached the gates of ETO at 8:00 p.m. They thought, Florence said, that they had found security—“that the UN soldiers were only there to ensure safety.”
Jean-Pierre Rukerikibaye went to ETO with about 30 others from his village. The friends reassured one another that “neither the army nor the militia would dare attack a place guarded by UNAMIR.” Another group came to ETO from Niboye II cellule. Among them was Vénantie Mukamudenge, whose faith in the strength of the UN was such that she was convinced that she and her family were now on “UN territory,” and that “Rwanda could not violate it.”

A Troubling Reception

Once at ETO, the refugees were confused, terrified and often cold and hungry. Some were sick and injured, others were severely traumatised; all were in need of food, water, shelter and blankets. Among them were young women who had just given birth to babies or were heavily pregnant; orphaned children; and elderly people. They were experiencing the worst days of their lives¾some of them had already lost family and friends in the past hours or days. They desperately needed support and reassurance. Instead, they say, the soldiers seemed indifferent to their fate. Indeed large numbers were refused entry to the ETO buildings and were left to camp on the sports ground just outside the gates, vulnerable to threats from the marauding militiamen. In this way, families often became divided.
The priests at ETO were able to provide some food from the school’s stores, but the scramble to eat at mealtimes was a painful and humiliating exercise. Florence Mukakabanda felt that there could have been greater efforts to organise the refugees¾their food and accommodation¾and that UNAMIR should have taken a hand in this. She commented:

It was as if the soldiers were feeding their dogs. Only the strongest managed to get anything to eat. The soldiers watched it all but didn’t do anything to help sort it out. They weren’t trying to help us. It was just a formality to them.

Epiphanie Mukandutiye was too distressed to eat or drink, but her little daughter cried from hunger. She says the soldiers showed no compassion and “would walk past us guzzling milk and biscuits.” But while the priests at least helped those inside ETO, the people on the sports field received nothing and even struggled to find water, although it was available inside the ETO buildings. Anastasie Mukarukaka was outside while her husband was inside ETO. She found the soldiers to be “arrogant” and even hostile. She and her husband were only able to communicate through a barbed wire fence.
The primary need of the displaced people was for security and in this respect UNAMIR did help¾for as long as they were there¾by deterring the militia from harming the refugees. Some of the survivors noticed that, although the soldiers never stated this explicitly, they were fearful for their own lives following the murder of 10 Belgian paratroopers by government soldiers on the 7th. The deaths of their fellow soldiers must have shocked the UNAMIR troops and undoubtedly coloured their view of the situation at ETO. However, it should not have prevented them from responding to the refugees’ plight with care and sensitivity.

10 April: The Situation Deteriorates

The refugees were disturbed by the visit, on the morning of the 10th, of Colonel Leonidas Rusatira. Some recognized Rusatira who was a high-ranking officer in the FAR, the commander of the Ecole superieur militaire (ESM) and a well-known local resident who had lived in cellule Gatare, sector Kicukiro, for many years. Rusatira is said to have discussed the refugees’ situation with the UNAMIR soldiers and representatives of the gathering and to have promised to send government forces to guard the school buildings. Already surrounded by menacing gangs of interahamwe and Presidential Guard, the refugees were deeply troubled by this suggestion.
While the displaced people at ETO tried to sustain themselves physically and emotionally, their future was being decided by a shift in the political mood in Belgium and wavering at the UN. At the UN there was uncertainty over how to define UNAMIR’s role in the context of the explosion of violence after 6 April. Its failure to acknowledge the genocidal nature of the killings left the organisation concentrating on efforts to secure a cease-fire to renewed fighting between the RPF and the FAR. Once committed to supporting the peace process in Rwanda, Belgium had contributed more than 600 troops to UNAMIR and its contingent was regarded as a crucial element of the force. However, after the murder of the paratroopers, the Belgian government felt it could not risk the loss of further nationals and focused all its energies on plans to evacuate Belgians living in Rwanda. Once the evacuation was complete, Belgium would declare its intention to withdraw all its troops from UNAMIR. Although this had not been stated by the 11th, it was already influencing the decisions made by commanders on the ground.
By the 10th, Lieutenant Luc Lemaire, the commander of the troops based at ETO, was aware that it might not be long before they were recalled. He alerted some of the refugees to the possibility of a UNAMIR pullout. Recollections of the details of these meetings vary among the survivors, but most speak of their realisation that they might need to begin looking for an alternative place of refuge. It seems that Lemaire first met with a small group of refugees and then addressed the crowd inside the school, but not those in the sports field. There were discussions about what the refugees might best do in the event of a pullout, but their suggestion that the soldiers should first escort them elsewhere was dismissed, leaving the crowd under a cloud of uncertainty. No one was given any idea that the troops intended to leave the following day.
Florence Mukakabanda was among the refugees who demonstrated their terror on learning that UNAMIR was considering withdrawal at some stage in the future. She said that eventually the soldier who addressed the crowd appeared to capitulate to their demand to stay until the RPF arrived.

He told us the Rwandese government was demanding they leave. We shouted that UNAMIR had to stay to guarantee our safety. We stressed that the government was in favour of the killings and was hardly going to protect us when it was preparing the carnage.

The refugees outside ETO heard none of these discussions. Around the middle of the day, the groups of interahamwe which had been loitering outside the school launched an attack upon those in the sports field. The refugees defended themselves with stones and the soldiers fought off the militiamen with gunfire, averting a massacre. This was a demonstration of exactly how important the presence of the soldiers was and what would happen should they leave.

11 April: The Troops Leave ETO

France had been the first country to mount an evacuation operation. On the morning of the 11th, French troops arrived at ETO to accompany expatriates and a few Rwandese, mostly members of the clergy who were only included at the insistence of their European colleagues. A nun from the Order of the Disciples of Jesus of Eucharist was one of the fortunate Rwandese. She explained that their inclusion in the mission was hard-won:

UNAMIR was not interested in saving the lives of black people. The only reason we got evacuated was because our Italian Sisters categorically refused to go without us.

Rose Mushikwabo was one of the few other Rwandese who was taken along by the French, but only because she had been evacuated to ETO with Italian friends. She said that “unless you attached yourself to a European who was leaving, you stayed behind.” She was torn between loyalty to her fellow-Rwandese and the “will to survive.”
Soon after the expatriates had gone, Col. Rusatira returned to the school. According to Madeleine Mugorewera, he was in no doubt that UNAMIR was intending to leave and he told the refugees so. By this time, in any case, the refugees could see the Belgian soldiers packing up. They barely had time to absorb the realization that the troops were preparing to leave when the French soldiers returned. This time their mission was to evacuate the UNAMIR troops at ETO, which they did around 2:00 p.m.
It has since emerged that Lieutenant Lemaire had received orders from his superior, Lt. Col. Dewez, to dispatch troops to Gitarama to escort some Belgians back to the city. This was the context in which Lemaire decided to take advantage of the security afforded by a French escort and the news that the road they had taken was clear. But he could not have chosen a worse moment. With the confused messages they had received from the soldiers in the preceding days, the refugees were totally unprepared for the sudden departure of the troops. Had they been given the opportunity either to plan or attempt an escape, the carnage which followed would not have been as extensive. The lack of information, advice or assistance in the crucial hours before the departure undoubtedly contributed to the scale of the disaster. While Lieutenant Lemaire in particular has since expressed shock and regret at what ensued, it is clear that the soldiers knew the gravity of the danger in which they left the refugees.
Just before the UNAMIR troops drove out of ETO, Yves Habumuremyi noticed that the interahamwe outside had become very noisy, shouting and blowing whistles. He is convinced they had been told about the withdrawal. The soldiers had called the refugees inside ETO to have something to eat so as to deflect attention from their own plans. But, Claire Kayitesi said, this “trick” did not convince many of them. As they saw the lorries driving out of ETO, the refugees rushed to do all they could to prevent them leaving. The humiliation they experienced at the hands of the soldiers determined to leave ETO is evident in the account of Claire Kayitesi.

The French were the first to leave followed by the Belgians. Some of the refugees tried to bar their way by lying on the ground in front of the lorries whilst others tried to climb on board them. The Belgian soldiers pushed the refugees down to stop them climbing into the lorries and terrified them by aiming their guns at them.
As for those who were lying on the ground, the Belgian UNAMIR soldiers let off rounds of shots into the air above them so that they fled in all directions. After that the UNAMIR lorries, transporting the Belgian soldiers, were free to start their engines. They were able to drive off to join the UNAMIR lorries transporting the French who, seeing what had happened behind them, had slowed down to wait for their European brothers. The cortège was impressive and they all pulled out together.

Agnès Nyirabasinga, a 45-year-old farmer, was among those who lay in the road in front of the vehicles.

We tried to block the road to stop UNAMIR leaving. They had no pity for us. They fired in the air, and then the convoy of vehicles drove off, never to return. We had lain down in front of them to make them realise how desperate we were, because we had been counting on their protection. Their departure was the hardest blow we had to endure up until then. No-one told us to lie down in the road; it was spontaneous. Perhaps one person lay down first, and then all the rest followed their example, but no-one ordered us to risk being injured.

For Berthilde Mukamudenge, as for all the other survivors, this decision of the soldiers to desert civilians on the brink of being attacked was a betrayal and suggested that they “thought we were subhuman.” She added: “They knew very well that as soon as they left the interahamwe would charge in and kill us.”

The Massacre at ETO

The interahamwe and soldiers who surrounded the school were poised for attack. Even as the dust raised by the departing vehicles of the UNAMIR and French soldiers was still visible, they invaded ETO. Many were killed within minutes of the soldiers’ departure. They were shot at, pounded with grenades and stoned. They were chased by militiamen wielding machetes, clubs and spears. With the soldiers gone, many of the people on the sports field had seen the opportunity to get inside the school where they thought they would be safer. But as they forced their way in one gate, they saw the interahamwe coming in through another. They collided with the people from ETO who were trying to escape, screaming that UNAMIR had abandoned them.
While there were those who were not able to run because they were too young, sick or elderly, most of the refugees, almost instinctively, took the same routes away from the school. Some had already thought through the possibility that the UN soldiers might pull out and had then concluded that their best chance of survival would be if they were given an escort to join the RPF forces at Amahoro stadium or the base for their battalion, a building known as CND. Those who managed to get out of ETO tended to try and head for either of these locations.
Jeanne d’Arc Kayitesi had the horrific experience of having to jump over the dead bodies of family members and then witnessing the murder of one of her brothers as she tried to escape.

The interahamwe shot or hacked to death anyone they caught, mainly those not strong enough to run away. My two brothers, Rutaremara, aged 34, and Frédéric, aged 29, were among the first to die at ETO. When the chaos started, my brother Rutaremara, who worked at ETO, dragged us into a classroom. Ten minutes later, the interahamwe found us, and fired into the group of people. I managed to get out. I saw Rutaremara and his children, Elie, aged three, and Tahita aged two, lying dead by the door. I had to jump over them to get out. The remains of my brother and his children were still there after the genocide; their bones were left inside the clothes I recognised.
Frédéric was also killed at ETO. I saw them shoot him. He was trying to run away. My sister-in-law, Joséline, didn’t move. She took her two-day-old baby and put him on her lap and then waited to die. She said she was too weak to move at all. She stayed in the room we had been sleeping in and was probably killed there.

Augustin Ngendandumwe had done military service and realized that the refugees were facing a well-planned assault. Their assailants had stationed men at all the exits and on the routes away from the school. He was at the head of the column of people fleeing ETO and decided to try and reach Amahoro stadium. But, he said, the area was so well patrolled by the interahamwe that whichever direction people took, they were forced to end up in the same place. Some were killed, and the rest found themselves in a “corridor” with no alternative but to march in the direction of a factory known as Sonatubes.
Several witnesses described the long walk from Sonatubes to Nyanza as a “death march.” The sights they encountered along the way left the refugees in no doubt that they were to be massacred. The roads were lined with interahamwe armed with knives and clubs covered with nails who yelled abuse and administered brutal beatings. They passed heaps of dead bodies along the roadside. Several of the young women were abducted from the column of refugees and taken to be raped and killed. The refugees all knew they were doomed, that they were, in the words of one survivor, on their way to “Armageddon.”
At Sonatubes, the refugees found a large group of soldiers and interahamwe waiting for them. They were ordered to raise their hands and sit down in the pouring rain, then subjected to beatings, mockery and humiliation. They were “prisoners” and knew they had no choice but to agree to the demands of their armed captors. They were robbed of any money or valuables they had brought with them as well as insulted and threatened. There was a torrential downpour and the refugees were soaking wet and shivering in the cold. They saw vehicles carrying Ghanaian UNAMIR soldiers approaching but, although the refugees were surrounded by armed men and shouted for help, the troops drove by.
After more than half an hour, the soldiers decided that the location was too public and the refugees were instructed to walk to Nyanza. The soldier who ordered the crowd to go to Nyanza was identified by several survivors as Col. Rusatira. Given the horrific killings which took place at Nyanza, this accusation against Rusatira is extremely serious and demands further investigation.

The Massacre at Nyanza

It was around 5:30 p.m. when the refugees finally reached Nyanza. They had been walking for more than an hour and were exhausted. The sight of another group of armed men, soldiers and interahamwe, who had evidently been awaiting their arrival, was confirmation that their situation was without hope. After ordering the refugees to sit down on the Nyanza-Rebero road, the soldiers and the interahamwe, shouldering guns, took up positions on the bank above. Civilians gathered round, carrying traditional weapons, including machetes, axes, spears and clubs.
The killings did not begin immediately; the refugees were left to contemplate their death for around half an hour. Then, just as the soldiers were beginning to throw grenades into the crowd, one of them noticed a Hutu family still among them. The attackers halted momentarily and told any Hutus who remained in the crowd to stand aside, allowing them the chance of survival. Then soldiers began firing guns and grenades indiscriminately into the stationary rows of Tutsis— men, women and children. Later, the interahamwe moved in with traditional weapons among the mass of bleeding corpses to finish off anyone still capable of movement.
Ernestine Gasibirege described how grenades and bullets “rained down” upon the refugees.

It was a hellish scene of blood, fire, clouds of dust raised by the grenades, mutilated bodies and the screams of the wounded and dying. After using their guns and grenades, the killers came in with knives and machetes, finishing off the survivors. They hacked them to death with machetes, stabbed them with spears or clubbed them to death using all kinds of traditional weapons. They kept at it until late when they withdrew in case of a surprise attack at night by the RPF. All the time screams were coming from that mound of torn flesh and blood.

Those who survived invariably did so by appearing to be dead, usually underneath a heap of bodies or smeared with blood. Some parents called out for their children and got no response; others tried to keep their loved ones silent, aware that this would be their only protection. Marie-Rose Hodali was one of many who struggled to prevent injured and bewildered children and babies from drawing the attention of the killers. She was carrying her youngest sister, Consolée, on her back when the shooting started.

I held her in my arms and we lay on the ground. A soldier shot us. The bullet tore the child’s face and then hit me in the right breast. We were covered in blood, ours and other people’s. Consolée did not die immediately. When she saw the blood she cried and called out to me, pulling me against her. I will never forget that.

Unable to continue, Marie-Rose broke down in tears, recalling the final hours of her sister, who died the day after she was wounded, and how she was unable to comfort her.

I had to play dead. But the child could not bear that and would not leave me alone.

As darkness fell it became increasingly difficult to tell the dead from the living and the decision was taken by the leading génocidaires to leave the massacre site and return the following morning. The few people who either escaped injury and those whose wounds did not prevent them disentangling themselves from the tortured remains of their friends and families, used the cover of the night to take refuge in the woods nearby. They could only watch from a distance as, at about 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday the 12th, the killers returned to deal the final death blows to the wounded, and steal from the corpses which surrounded them. It was only the arrival of the RPA soldiers that brought this nightmare to an end.
Each survivor of the massacre experienced his own trauma and loss at Nyanza. But all of them have been left with memories so terrible that every day since 11 April 1994 must have been lived in anguish.

A Question of Justice

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has convicted one of the leaders of the onslaught upon the refugees at ETO and Nyanza¾Georges Rutaganda, the second vice-president of the interahamwe and a member of the political bureau of Habyarimana’s ruling party. But the survivors say that others will need to be prosecuted if justice is to be done; in particular they name Col. Leonides Rusatira. The ICTR has already accepted testimony that Rusatira evacuated Hutus from ETO just before the massacre and that he gave the order to take the refugees to Nyanza. African Rights has heard a number of allegations regarding Rusatira including some, from Hutu residents of Kicukiro, claiming that he held meetings for the interahamwe and distributed rifles. Rusatira is now living in Belgium and is known to the authorities there.
The issue of how to deliver justice in relation to the crimes committed at ETO and Nyanza goes beyond the direct participants in the killings. Survivors of ETO, and many other genocide survivors in Rwanda, believe that the UN has a case to answer. Epiphanie Mukandutiye described UNAMIR’s departure from ETO as “disgraceful.”

They served us up on a plate to ravenous beasts. All the refugees from the ETO were killed because of UNAMIR and that man, Rusatira.

The knowledge that they would be massacred without the protection of the soldiers was so evident to the refugees that, seven years after the genocide, they remain bewildered by their fate. Jean-Pierre Rukerikibaye lost his father, a son and four brothers at Nyanza. He was wounded in the back with a spear and in the left arm by shrapnel. As he ran, he fell into a hole; he was so weak that it took him two days to crawl out of the hole.

I find it hard to talk about the horrors I experienced. All the UNAMIR soldiers, especially those at ETO, know very well what happened. I’m sure it must be on their consciences, and will be for the rest of their lives. They pulled out knowing full well what was in store for us. So they are partly responsible for what we suffered, because they knowingly abandoned us.
I will never forget, as long as I live, the sight of UNAMIR leaving ETO, and treating our tears with contempt. Honestly, I’ll never forget that sight.

Maximilien Rudasingwa lost his entire family at Nyanza and holds UNAMIR responsible for their deaths.

They deserted us at ETO, with no means of defending ourselves, when they could have saved us, and when they could see how we were surrounded by the interahamwe. I insist they were accomplices to murder.
I would like to see them prosecuted. That would make us feel a bit better. Especially the soldier who gave the orders to abandon us at ETO. He should be made to come and explain to the Rwandese why he did that. If there were prosecutions, we might feel that the commemoration of those who died in the genocide means something at the international level.

He argued the UN has a duty to help the survivors.

The survivors have become widows, orphans, and disabled people. We can’t pay school fees, our belongings were looted, our houses were wrecked and we have no other income. Many people have become impoverished. I suggest the UN helps with our reintegration into society, so that we can return to the life we lived before the genocide when our families were alive.

Vénuste Karasira’s arm has had to be amputated. He cannot understand why the soldiers behaved as they did.

At the very least, they could have warned us the day before, 10 April. We might have tried the impossible, and got through to the RPF zone under cover of darkness. The UNAMIR soldiers should tell us now whether they even told the RPF we were there.
I’m glad the UN has admitted its negligence. Now they need to see how they can make amends for their irresponsible behaviour.

Some argue that the organization should pay compensation directly to the victims of the genocide. Meanwhile, the Independent Inquiry has called upon it to help reconstruct the country. Compensation for survivors of the genocide in Rwanda cannot even begin to lessen the sorrow that overshadows their lives, but their testimonies show that the genocide has also left a legacy of practical problems that the UN could help them to resolve. Thus far none of the individuals whose errors of judgement contributed to international inaction in the face of genocide has even seen fit to resign. Some concrete and meaningful initiative is urgently needed to give substance to the apologies already offered by the UN. Western governments whose reluctance to intervene blocked UN action should come forward to enable the organization to make such a commitment. Both Belgium and France have a particular responsibility to help. Unless the UN is prepared to be accountable for its failings, the survivors can only assume that now, as at the time of the genocide, their suffering simply does not matter enough.
More broadly, the withdrawal of the troops at ETO is an emphatic statement of the fact that victims around the world are not treated as equals, but are instinctively given a value along a measure embedded in a distorted global consciousness. It is safe to assume that had they been unable to evacuate the expatriates from the school, the Belgians would not have contemplated leaving; they would have known beyond question what their orders would be. This is a reality, decided by Western economic and political influence, which undermines the UN system. It needs to be openly addressed with measures to reform attitudes, as well as institutional practices. More than 2,500 people at ETO discovered in the most direct way possible that the outside world did not care enough about their lives and most died in this knowledge. Ultimately, nothing less than the question of how to instill greater recognition of the meaning and responsibilities of our common humanity within the populations and leaderships of all member nations will need to be tackled.