HOME Media Kit Advertising Contact Us About Us

 

Web The Truth


Community Calendar

Dear Ryan

Classifieds

Online Issues

Send a Letter to the Editor


 

 
 

Rwandan Genocide Survivor Shares Her Story with Maritime Academy of Toledo Cadets

By Matt Zaleski

The Truth Contributor

 

Twenty years ago, Norah Bagirinka, somehow survived the Rwandan Genocide that claimed the lives of 800,000 men, women and children, in 100 days.  Last Friday, at The Maritime Academy of Toledo, she shared her story with cadets who weren’t even born when the atrocity unfolded.

 

According to the United Human Rights Council, in 1994, Rwanda’s population of seven million was composed of three ethnic groups: Hutu (approximately 85 percent), Tutsi (14 percent) and Twa (1 percent). In the early 1990s, Hutu extremists within Rwanda’s political elite blamed the entire Tutsi minority population for the country’s increasing social, economic and political pressures.

 

Tutsi civilians were also accused of supporting a Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Through the use of propaganda and constant political maneuvering, Habyarimana, who was the president at the time, and his group increased divisions between Hutu and Tutsi by the end of 1992.

 

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying President Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down. Violence began almost immediately after that. Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes and as they tried to flee at roadblocks set up across the country during the genocide. Entire families were killed at a time. Women were systematically and brutally raped. It is estimated that some 200,000 people participated in the perpetration of the Rwandan genocide.

 

In the weeks after the violence started, 800,000 men, women, and children perished in the Rwandan genocide, perhaps as many as three-quarters of the Tutsi population. At the same time, thousands of Hutu were murdered because they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.

 

Bagirinka, a member of the Tutsi Tribe, says she was supposed to die but that her husband, who was Somali, was able to protect her.

 

“It was hard and I am not sure how I managed to survive and stay alive. But I believe I survived because maybe there is something that I need to finish.  That is what I tell the children,” she said.

 

Bagirinka worked as a translator on the documentary "God Sleeps in Rwanda” which documented the Rwandan genocide.  When filming moved to the U.S., Bagirinka sought asylum. Bagirinka has become an Asset Development Coach with the Economic and Community Development Institute working with other Rwandan genocide survivors in Columbus.  Over the past 20 years, central Ohio has become the asylum to more than 150 refugees especially Rwandan, Congolese and Burundi women and their families.

 

She says she has addressed several high schools and universities and reaching young people who were not alive when the genocide took place is a challenge.

 

“It is tough and hard.  But I tell them about how it was for me growing up.  I tell them that they have to work at being a better person and about being prepared because you never know when things can be taken from you,” she said.

 

Bagirinka says when she talks to students the biggest question she faces is “why did this happen”?

 

“I tell them it was greed … and hatred.   There was lots of greed.  I tell them people came and took houses, cars and family. Leaders had a lot to do with it. They told people it was okay to do this,” she said.

 

Bagirinka says she knows that while it is difficult to get the story of the Rwandan genocide across to young people she will continue to tell her story.

 

“I’m planting a seed in the hopes that it will make a difference,” she said.

 

When asked if the events of 20 years ago seem like a long time ago, she said, “it seems like only yesterday and I still get tears in my eyes thinking about it.”

 

 
   
   


Copyright © 2014 by [The Sojourner's Truth]. All rights reserved.
Revised: 08/16/18 14:12:28 -0700.


More Articles....

Oh…What Could Have Been!

What Will You Find During Medicare Open Enrollment?

Girl Scouts Host “Keepin’ It Real”
 


   

Back to Home Page

 

 

 

Copyright © 2014 The Sojourner's Truth. All Rights Reserved.