Children born During Genocide Speak Out

Two young women that were born during the Genocide have talked to IGIHE about their lives before and after the genocide and their thoughts on this year’s theme for the commemoration period: Learning from our past; building our future.

Solange Muhoza was born in Rwanda, She was just an infant when the genocide begun and now has no family left apart from her Grandmother who suffers from severe post-traumatic stress and who has never left Rwanda.

After years of living in what she remembers as one of the most violent places on earth, She says she doesn’t want to remember about the past “Please don’t ask me about it,” she says, “I will never be able to think about that”.

“I see things are better in Rwanda and now I can see that it’s true,” she says. “I don’t worry about war now. All I care about is studying and helping my grandmother.”

As the genocide ended, Muhoza’s family was lost. She was rescued by soldiers of the RPF that helped her reunite with her Grandmother. Now, Muhoza is the head of her family with her Grandmother where she takes care of the farm.

In a small, square, brick house that was built by a government program for survivors of the genocide.

Claire Kwizera knows little of the Rwandan genocide for she and much of her family fled to the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo during the genocide when she was just three years old.

Kwizera still has both of her parents and says her family was spared from the violence of the genocide because they fled before the violence broke out.

She is in her second year of university studying human sciences at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.

“I know I wasn’t here during the genocide through there commemorations, we learn a lot” she says, “and I feel like I can help others like me in teaching them about the genocide and how we can prevent this from happening elsewhere”.

“Rwanda is known for being one of the best places on earth now” she says “for its beauty, people and security, how amazing that is,” she states, “I would like to be a part of its future even if I wasn’t there for its past”.