When commemorating the genocide only spells death for survivors!

Every April 7th, Rwanda commemorates the Genocide that cost more than a million lives.

I just had dinner with a gentleman of about 60 years of age who survived the genocide by hiding for weeks in the ceiling of a good samaritan’s house. There were several occasions he told me, when he was so close to giving up hiding since he had lost all hope after eaves dropping on the conversations of killers who had come to end their day's work with some local brew at the house he was hiding in. The killers apparently tallied those they had killed at the end of every day over a pot of local brew and even boasted of achieving their goal of wiping out all the Tutsi! To make it worse the good samaritan reminded him every single day of how lucky he was since many Tutsis like him in the area had been wiped out, because they couldn't be hidden any longer by those who had given them a place to hide in their homes. He managed to survive the genocide luckily but his family did not!

After giving me his short account, he received a phone call from a friend who told him that two youths (genocide survivors) had been kidnapped, killed and their bodies dumped in a river.

Mysterious deaths of genocide survivors and harassment mark our commemoration of the genocide in Rwanda. For the next month, not only will genocide survivors remember their loved ones lost, but they will be faced with their greatest fear of dying most likely like those whose deaths they are commemorating.