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Valentine Iribagiza Before the genocide, I lived with my father, mother, two sisters and four brothers inNyarubuye. In 1990, 1991, 1992, people lived together and got on fine. Thingsbegan to change around 1992/1993: you would be in class, for example, and peoplewould ask you if you were Tutsi. Being just a kid, you wouldn't understand, and youwould just say yes. From then on, you were bullied, especially by the older kids;they would take your things and threaten you. You could see that some people nolonger had any value.

When Habyarimana's aeroplane was shot down on 6 April 1994, we were all athome. We saw many people running in all directions. When the perpetrators startedburning people's houses, we ran to the parish church. On Friday 15 April, theInterahamwe surrounded it. Mayor Gacumbitsi was with the soldiers. He told them,"Take your tools and get to work. You hit snakes on the head to kill them." Theystarted killing. At night, they went home, but they came back next day and the dayafter that. I lay among the corpses and tried to hold my breath. They would throwrocks in or pick up kids and throw them in the air. They threw a stone at me and I

screamed. They took me outside beating me, along with the others who were only wounded. I asked for mercy, but one of our neighbours, Pascal, said, "I recognise that brat. Isn't she from Bikoramuki's family? All the rest of her family is dead, sowhat's so tough about her that we can't manage her?" He kicked me and spat on the ground saying that he wouldn't splashmy blood onto him. He passed me over to another one called Antoine saying, "You kill that one." Antoine took a club andhit my fingers until the bones were all smashed. Then he cut my head with a machete. I don't know what happened afterthat.

When I woke up, it was night. There was a strong wind, it had rained and it was cold. I had dirt and sand all over me. Ilooked at all the people lying next to me. They were all dead. I started moving towards a place where there were more

bodies so they would they think I was dead as well. By dawn, I was very hungry. I couldn't walk so I crawled on my bottomand whenever I came across a dead body, I rolled over it. I reached a place where there was a water tap, but I couldn'treach to drink the water. I carried on as far as the room where I had been before and I lay down again among the deadbodies. It was three days after the killings, so the bodies stank. The Interahamwe would pass by without entering theroom, and dogs would come to eat the bodies. I lived there for 43 days. On the 43rd day, an Interahamwe found me. Hetold me to hang in there, and left. 45 minutes later, some RPF soldiers came with a Frenchman. I was in a terrible state:my fingers were going bad and my head wounds were full of lice. They took me to Kibungo, where I spent six months inhospital.

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After I was healed, I found out that my younger brother Gahini had also survived. Since the end of the genocide, I've seensome kids really traumatised, but it hasn't happened to me. I had to get used to having the scars and having lost myfingers; at first I had complexes and would hide my hand, but now it's okay. My brother and I are lucky to be able to livewith my cousin. He's like a brother to us; he's our father and mother. We share all our problems with him. He pays our

school fees and looks after us when we are sick. Reconciliation is happening, and we hope t hat Rwanda can return to theway it used to be. But I'll never forget, and I'll definitely tell my children about it. At first I didn't want to give my testimonybecause testimony is like a secret. You can't just tell it to anyone. But it's a way of fighting those who deny what happened,and it's important because of that.

A longer version of this account is published by the Aegis Trust in ' A Time to Remember: Rwanda, ten years after the genocide '.

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