The 37-year-old Dubai resident, who is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, lost her parents and most of her extended family and friends in the 1994 massacre carried out by the Hutus against the Tutsis over a period of 100 days. Daily headlines from the UAE and around the world brought to you by Gulf News. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/videos
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00:00My name is Grace Mukasekuru. I'm 38. I'm married and have a daughter. She's five.
00:10Her name is Emanuela. I guess I can start with my life in Rwanda before the genocide.
00:20I had a happy childhood. I was very happy like any other child. I grew up, I came from a big family
00:32of 11 siblings, so lots of kids. And the genocide, when the genocide happened,
00:39I was at home with my parents. I was 13 when the genocide happened.
00:42I was home with my parents and the first memories I remember of the genocide
00:50is of my father, the look on my father's face the morning of April 7th, I believe.
00:59The morning of April 7th when he heard the news of what had happened. And the reason I remember
01:05that image or the look on my father's face is because my father was always a happy person.
01:12As a child, I remember my father being a happy person, a smiling person.
01:16And that day, he wasn't. He was not smiling at all. He was not happy.
01:21Something was troubling him. I came to find out later, you know, what had happened.
01:29So in that moment, my father, in that morning, my father left with my uncles and my older brother.
01:38And that would be the last time we saw them. We stayed home with my mom.
01:44Eventually, we had to leave the home, go in the hiding in the bushes,
01:49and then we'll come home at night. We did that for some time until it was no longer,
01:56we were no longer able to do that. And we're no longer able to do that because my home was
02:01burned down. When they couldn't find my father, they burned our home down. When they burned our
02:09house down, we had to go to, we were running from home to home trying to find anyone who were
02:17willing to hide us. So we went to our home. The man was willing to hide us. We stayed there with
02:23him for some time. And I was with my mom at that time, still with my mom and my siblings,
02:30and going back a little bit, as the memories now come to me, I remember the, I guess, the last meal
02:38that my mom made for us. Because I remember she cooked for us that day. She cooked for us.
02:46And I don't know, it's because the last meal we had with her, but I remember being so good.
02:52Yeah, so we went to the, to that man's home and we were hiding there for some time. But eventually,
03:02when the people, the killers, the perpetrator found out he was hiding people, they will come
03:07and search. So when they came to search, they would tell us to go hide. We'll go hide. We used
03:11to hide behind the bushes, wherever, wherever possible you can go. And so we'll hide and at
03:18night we'll come to him, to his home. We did that until we couldn't do it anymore. One time they
03:30came to search and we all ran our separate ways. And that was the last time I saw my mom alive.
03:37Actually, that was the last time I ever saw my mom. Because we never saw her dead or alive.
03:43We never found her body or her remains. Her and my two younger brothers that she was with.
03:53Although in my heart, I believe, I believe one of them is out there and I have always had that
03:59feeling. I never left, let that feeling go. I always feel like someone is out there.
04:07So to continue the story from there, we ran our separate ways. Eventually, I met my siblings,
04:14my younger brother and my younger sister. Her name is Letitia and my brother's name is Joe.
04:23Eventually, we found ourselves in another hiding place. So we would do that. We would hide from
04:29places to places until we were no longer able to hide there. And then eventually,
04:36nobody was willing to hide us. So we found ourselves back to my uncle's home. And we're
04:42all hiding there with like 15 other people, family members, like aunts, uncles, cousins,
04:49sorry, not uncles, aunts and cousins. And one night we're hiding there. One night they came
04:57to kill and we were hiding. Someone knocked on the door and they asked us to come out,
05:04made us line up. And I remember one of the aunts offering money so they can spare our lives.
05:12And they agreed. They said, yeah, you give us money, nothing will happen to you. But it was
05:18a lie. She gave them the money and she was the first to be killed. They killed her. They killed
05:25her daughter who was holding on to her. Francine, I remember, beautiful little girl. I think I want
05:33to say she was like five or four. And they killed her. They killed the mom. And then it became a
05:40chaos. We all start running. We realized, no, they're not going to spare our lives.
05:46They killed the other aunts and the children. And then for me, I got hit in the back of my head
05:52with like a baseball bat kind of a weapon. And I got hit in the back of my head. I fell to the
06:00ground and I pretended I was dead. And in that process, when I was still on the ground, a young
06:07man was killed. And this young man used to work in our home. But he was also a Tutsi. They killed
06:14him and he fell on top of me. And so I lay there, pretended to be dead. I tried my hardest so they
06:23would not notice that I was still alive. I was still breathing. And it helped that it was at night.
06:30I think it was not easy for them to see. Or maybe they were not as
06:36alert to see who's dead or alive in that time. So I survived that night thinking I'm the only
06:44one who survived. It was so quiet. So they killed. And after they killed, they went to my uncle's
06:49home to go take things out of the home. Because they used to usually first kill the people and
06:54then they take their things. So while they were rooting, taking things out of the home,
07:01they heard the baby cry. My aunt had a baby on her back. They killed her but the baby did not die.
07:07So they came back to finish. That's their term. They said to finish him off. They came, they
07:14killed him and they left. And I remained on that ground for some time until I felt that I was safe
07:22to move. I moved into the home, into the house. I stayed there until the morning when the sun came
07:28up and realized like seeing the number of dead in the compound. And then I heard a sound. I heard
07:38like footsteps. And the footsteps was my younger sister Letisha. She was not hurt but she had been
07:49behind the house the whole time. She came from behind the house and the look on her face is
07:57shock. I just remember vividly like her face being shocked and shocked. And then I heard we heard
08:06another sound and then we were both you know scared. And then it was realized my brother also
08:13survived but he had injuries. His hand was almost cut off. His shoulder had a wound from like I think
08:22a spear. And then my cousins, two of my cousins also survived but survived with really bad
08:32head injuries. He was cut so many places in the head that eventually he died from his wounds.
08:42But while we were there his sister also was there. She had like the machete cut her through her face
08:49like that and she also had injuries on her head. My dress I remember being fully covered in blood.
08:57My head felt like 10 kilos. It felt really heavy. I went on the streets and the people at the road
09:06blocks they were shocked to see us because I think they probably thought it was dead people
09:12walking around because my cousin's head is wide open, my brother's bleeding, my head. So they saw
09:18us and they said no no we don't want your blood on our hands. They say you better go before the
09:24others come back. When they come back they'll kill you. While we're on that road block I remember
09:31like a French convoy of police, not police but military vehicle come and
09:42someone talking to them in French trying to plead for them to take us but they wouldn't take us.
09:49When they left the guy told us who was on the road block he said you better go if you don't go
09:54they'll kill you when they come. So we left from there and we went our separate ways. Our cousin or
10:03two cousins went on their own because they wanted to go to their mom's side of the family trying to
10:09find out if they can stay there. We went to another home where we thought it was a friend of the
10:17family. It was a Hutu and we thought we can stay there and when we got there he was very welcoming.
10:25He was happy to see us. He took us in and we stayed there for some time but right away they
10:33had to dress my brother in like a dress. They had to make him look like a girl and we stayed there
10:40and people would, the perpetrators, they would come. Now going back a little bit he was a Hutu
10:46but he was married to a Tutsi. He had children who were mixed. So the Hutus who were coming to
10:55search the home, they will come and search the home and then they will leave. So what they used
11:00to make us sit with all the children and let them search and then they will leave. But my brother
11:05was so scared one on one occasion he went and ran under the bed and then something told me like to
11:12take him out and I took him out and moments later they came and searched and they put like a spear or
11:21a sword or some sort under the bed and the same place he had been if he had not taken him out
11:29they probably killed him and killed us also realizing all this you know. So we survived
11:36that. We stayed there with him for some time. I don't, I can't say how many days. Eventually we
11:43ended up in a place called Revero where RPF, the Tutsi army had taken over. So they came to
11:55take us. They came to, they took us from the home. The RPF, the Tutsi took us from the home, rescued us
12:02from the home, took us to Revero but it was not safe to stay there. So we had to move to another
12:08location where another place called CND. We stayed there for some time but even there was not safe
12:15because they were still throwing bombs in there. Actually when we got there some people died there
12:22thinking they had survived. So from there we went to the to the camps, the refugee, I don't want to
12:31I don't know if I call it a refugee camp but the camps in Ibumba. But before we got there someone
12:38recognized us and said I know your uncle, your uncle survived. He's with his family in Ibumba. So when
12:45we went we went directly to my uncle and stayed with him and when we were there
12:53we stayed obviously we stayed in a camp until the war was finished and when the war was
12:58when the war ended we came back to the capital in Kigali and we stayed with him. We lived with them
13:05but my sister had an older sister who was already in Canada and that time when they found out that
13:11we survived they started the process of trying to get us our papers to go to Canada.
13:18In 94 before the year ended we ended we went to Kenya to start the process of going to
13:26Canada. So we spent another year in Kenya before we went to Canada in 1995.
13:36And when we got to Canada
13:41sometimes I tell people some people
13:46the genocide lasted for 100 days. Approximately a million Tutsis were killed and
13:55in 100 days and that's bad you know that that you cannot describe what that means but for me
14:04sometimes I say that was only the beginning. For an orphan like myself that was only the beginning
14:13of the struggle that followed and I feel sometimes we talk about the genocide and then
14:21it's as if it stops when the war ended but it did not stop there because I actually feel that
14:29during that time of the genocide somehow we're able to to survive in the moment but when you're
14:38no longer in that survival mode the reality hits you that you realize what really what it all meant
14:50realizing that your your parents are no longer alive both my parents and when we left Rwanda
14:58we never buried any of them. When I left Rwanda in 94 there were still dead bodies on the streets
15:05there were still mass graves so we were kind of taken away from this place but that place never
15:17left me so I struggled and it was an internal struggle because now I was taken from a place
15:27where everybody experienced what I experienced to a place where nobody knew what I experienced
15:34except for my siblings so when I stepped out of the home when I went to school nobody knew
15:42so we the struggle you had was internalized and it's another layer of struggle because
15:51also the family that you go into they themselves don't know how to help you they don't even know
15:58where to start or they sometimes don't want to open up that because they probably think
16:03they will hurt you more than helping you you know so I went through a phase of like a good 10 years
16:11of internalizing the pain. I cried out myself to sleep a lot in those 10 years
16:26I had a really bad breakdown in high school
16:34and was in English in an English class in an English class we were reading a book
16:41I think it's called To Kill a Mockingbird if I remember but all I remember was about the
16:49violence and the things that were happening in the book and I remember in the class for the class
16:56my classmates it was just a book and then after the book we watched the movie but for me
17:03I had I was having visuals like memories of what happened so I that was the first time I told
17:12anybody that about happened like the school didn't know the school where I was going to didn't know
17:21that we had experienced the genocide so when I when I broke down my English teacher asked me why
17:29I opened up to him and then he took me to the counselor's office and then the counselor
17:38suggested that I would seek counseling
17:43and then so the counselor arranged for counseling like outside the school
17:51but my family did not understand it the same so I was not allowed to go for the counseling
18:03so again I had to internalize my feelings I had to internalize what I was like the images the
18:11and now I can actually speak about it because since I had my baby I'm feeling like I'm starting to heal
18:22at that time I had a lot of guilt
18:24I had a lot of guilt of why did I survive and they did it
18:33and that's something that never goes away you know
18:54you