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| Material for basic course 5 (human rights violations)War is always a violation of human rights. Children are always especially hard hit. "Every war is a war against children" - the title of an exhibition by the children's aid agency called 'Kindernothilfe'. The following report about a young girl from Rwanda has been taken from the material provided by this organization. You will find more information about the plight of children during wars within the framework of our advanced subject of children's rights.
My name is Marie Grace and I was born on 10.08.1984 in Cyangugu/Rwanda. I was the youngest of ten children, eight of whom were still alive as war broke out in Rwanda, before the beginning of the terrible massacre. I was the only one still at primary school so I lived with my parents. Three of my brothers and one of my sisters were staying with us for the Easter holidays. On 7 April, Radio Rwanda announced the president's plane crash. The terror and murder began On 11 April we heard shots being fired at the house of a neighboring trader, who was an oppositional Hutu. Our parents told us to flee at once. We had heard about the massacre of Tutsi families in Kigali so we searched for refuge among Hutu families. But they turned us away - they were frightened. And that's why four Tutsi families ended up hiding out in a small house not far away from ours. Unfortunately, and unknown to us, the area was being monitored by Hutu militiamen. As the soldiers arrived they had little difficulty in finding us. At around 2 pm on 11 April the soldiers came with the militia, who ordered us to lie in front of the door outside. Then they started to shoot. I was lying next to my mother and, as luck would have it, I was not hit by a bullet. But my mother died instantly and my sister was also hit. I begged her to remain silent so that the soldiers might not notice us. Then she died. One of my brothers jumped up and tried to run away. He was killed after a few meters. The few survivors of our group were taken away by friendly people. The militia wanted to kill all remaining survivors with machetes and they raided all the Tutsi houses. There was nothing to eat and we survived on water alone. On some rare occasions, we were brought food, but there was never enough for everyone. The militia captured the adults of our group after a few days and they suffered a horrible death. On 15 April I learnt that my father and brother had been tortured and killed in a chapel. I was so sad that I wanted to live no longer. I wanted to die as well, because none of my family was left. My uncles, aunts, and friends were all dead. Several Hutus helped the children to escape the militia. One of my parent's neighbors hid me in his home. I was then sent to another family. Making a journey as a Tutsi was a life or death experience. At a road cordon the soldiers didn't want to let me past. One of them was going to shoot me; luckily one of the other soldiers, a friendly person, ordered him not to. A month later the FPR reached Kigali. Radio Rwanda announced that we must leave the country. And so my new foster family took me with them to Bukavu. It was here that I discovered that my sister and her husband, who live in Germany, were looking for me. [aus: Marie-Grace 1994, Übriggeblieben, in: Hildegard Schürings (Hrsg.), Ein Volk verlässt sein Land — Krieg und Völkermord in Ruanda, Köln, S.56 ff]
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