The 149-page book was launched on Wednesday at Kigali Marriot Hotel with the attendance of relatives and friends.
The book is a narrative.
Uwineza begins with the letter she wrote to her mother killed on 10th April 1994, her two elder sisters and her brother communicating to them of her sorrow and nostalgia after their death.
The letter Uwineza wrote in 2015 was her medical prescription following a long period experiencing trauma, with bad dreams especially related to her life during the genocide.
In her book, Uwineza directs a reader at the first days of genocide. She recalls how she lived happily with her family until she started days of gloom on 7th April when she woke and saw a soldier standing by her side who pulled her to the place where her mother and relatives were kept waiting to be killed.
Uwineza who was 10 years during the genocide, narrates how her mother was shot in the leg, how they spent nights in bushes hiding until 10th April when her family was taken out of nuns’ center known as Les Petites Soeurs de Jesus in Kicukiro. She never saw them again. Uwineza also narrates how she met her father again who was abroad during the genocide and her brother Johnny who survived.
After RPF Inkotanyi soldier rescued her, Uwineza tried to forget the bitter life she passed through but her efforts were futile.
“I lived as a person with two facets. A 10-year miserable old child holding an African print wrapper and an old person. I seemed to be a person with no problems physically but I had unending chagrin within me. I did things enabling me to forget the ten year-old child but could not be seen on the outer part,” she recalled.
In 2015, Uwineza had tough trauma and taken to a hospital where the doctor recommended her to write what she remembers happened to her during the genocide. The book came from what she wrote as a medical prescription.
“I started writing my feelings on a paper. Two years later, I still had scars but I felt hope within me. I recalled the last word my mother told me ‘go and live’. I realized that I had nonsense life over 22 years,” she unveiled.
Uwineza encouraged Rwandans to write their history especially survivors of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi to desist denials.
“The past will be forgotten if we don’t write. I will write so that the person denying the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi won’t convince me. I won’t engage in battle with him but I will influence through writings because the truth always prevails,” she said.
Wilberforce Murengezi, the father of Uwineza commended her daughter’s efforts to write a book featuring history and testimony of her family noting that God made it possible to rebuild hope despite endured sufferings.
Dr. Jean-Damascène Gasanabo, Director General of the Research and Documentation Center on Genocide within the CNLG said that Uwineza’s book is a contribution to the country and encouraged the youth to write and using all platforms lest genocide history is forgotten.
Apart from losing a parent, sister and brother, other 30 relatives from Uwineza’s wide family were killed during the genocide.
The book ‘Untamed, Beyond Freedom’ is sold at Rwf 15,000. It is available at Ikirezi library and Amazon online library.
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