Sosi was among the Ghanaian and Senegalese soldiers who chose to remain in Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, even after most of the UN troops had been pulled out of the country.
He is currently in Rwanda on a seven-day visit with fellow veterans, including Maj Gen (Rtd) Clayton Boanubah Yaache (Ghana), Brig Gen (Rtd) Martin Owusu-Ababio (Ghana), Brig Gen Elhadji Babacar Faye ( Senegal) , Brig Gen Stephen Parbey (Ghana), Ex WO II Lucas Norvihoho and Ex WO I Sampson Agyare, also from Ghana.
On April 7, 1994, Belgium decided to withdraw its troops from Rwanda, which weakened MINUAR. On that date, it also launched a strong campaign calling for the termination of MINUAR, seeking to have all forces withdrawn from Rwanda.
On April 11, Belgian soldiers abandoned more than 2,000 refugees at ETO Kicukiro, where they were immediately killed by the Interahamwe militia and government soldiers.
Under Belgium’s pressure, on April 21, 1994, the UN Security Council decided to withdraw MINUAR from Rwanda, leaving only 270 soldiers without the capacity to protect the victims.
Maj (Rtd) Sosi said that although the official records state that 270 soldiers remained, in reality they were 318, because some refused to leave.
Some of the names of those who stayed were replaced with those of the departed in order to make the figures align on paper.
On August 14, 2025, when these soldiers visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial and the Campaign Against the Atrocities Museum at the Parliament, Maj (Rtd) Sosi said that the visit reminded him of many experiences, particularly in Kigali.
“I also stayed, but my name was not on their lists. My commander had already replaced me with someone else. He came and found me lying down and asked what I was doing. I told him that I had stayed and not left. When he asked me why, I told him it was my decision.”
He continued: “There are things we realized we never knew. There was information we did not know, because if we had known it, things would have been different. Here we have again heard how the RPA forces made the decision to liberate the country and confront the government army. All the information we were shown here at the memorial—if we had had it at that time, many things would have gone differently. But because we did not know, we were simply struggling to see if there was something we could do.”
During the Genocide against the Tutsi, these Ghanaian soldiers managed to save about 30,000 people.
Maj (Rtd) Sosi said: “You would find people camped in different places. What we did was to go there, and whenever we arrived, we looked for ways to evacuate them. We also guarded the places where they were. Sometimes the Interahamwe would come. I clearly remember a man they took from Amahoro Stadium and killed behind it. Afterwards I tried to find his family but could not.”
He said that what they witnessed affected him deeply, because he felt that as soldiers on a UN peacekeeping mission they had failed Rwanda.
He said: “I can say that as a mission we failed the people. But there were some of us who decided to remain behind and provide some support. I think we managed to do something, but if the proper system had been in place, we could have done much more.”
{{He was surprised by the RPA’s fighting}}
When the 600 RPA soldiers who were in Kigali came under attack from government forces based in Kanombe and Kacyiru, they held out until the Alpha battalion stationed in Gicumbi arrived in Kigali to reinforce them.
He said: “This is where the 600 were located. They performed well because when you are in a war surrounded by enemies, you need reinforcements, equipment, and soldiers to keep helping you. Because they were surrounded by enemies and all those problems, the only thing they could do was to fight and protect where they were. What they did was very good.”
Maj (Rtd) Sosi said one of the things that surprised him most was the way these forces fought.
He said: “I had never read about Paul Kagame’s way of planning battles. Before, we thought they were fighting without a goal, because there were times they left behind enemy positions and attacked elsewhere. We did not know that this was their plan.”
He said they avoided using “Fix and Destroy” [a method of combat where both sides engage in direct, heavy fighting until one side is crushed] because it causes heavy losses.
He said: “Instead they used ‘Fix and Bypass’ [a method of pinning the enemy in one place with part of your troops, while using others to outflank or seize key positions], which meant they did not lose many soldiers. This is the method they used until they captured Kigali.”
Maj (Rtd) Sosi also expressed delight at the special welcome to Rwanda in 2025.
“I have never been welcomed like this in any other country I have visited. The security, the way everything was organized, the travel assistance, the hotels, and everything else were very good. And I am enjoying the food, the fresh air in Kigali, and the people here. Honestly, I am thinking of moving here,” he noted.
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