A Woman Rescued by Radishes
Hutu death squads came to Gatete settlement in April 1994 to kill “Tutsi cockroaches.”
Speciosa Mukasine was digging radishes in the terraced fields when she heard the screams of her family being slaughtered by the militiamen and some of her Hutu neighbors.
She hid in the jungle to escape. Mukasine, a younger sister and a cousin were the lone Tutsi survivors in their extended family of more than 20.
Mukasine fled to Burundi but came back three months later after the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front took control of the village. Her house was destroyed so she moved into that of a Hutu neighbor who ran away when the Tutsi soldiers approached in July 1994.
She lived quietly there until August when the Burundian army herded the Rwandan Hutus home--killers among them. Her Hutu neighbors identified those who killed her family, so Mukasine did not have to do it herself.
Now she has to move out of her borrowed house. Rwanda’s government has decreed that property must be returned to original owners.
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