Antoinette Mutabazi survived the terrible Rwandan genocide in 1994, but she witnessed unspeakable tragedies.
Following the killing of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana, the heinous crimes began.
Armed militia killed up to 800,000 Tutsi ethnic minority individuals in the course of 100 days when the country was in anarchy.
Antoinette was a member of the group and has spoken about her survival stories.
When the horrific conflict erupted, the survivor recalled being advised to hide away from the rest of his family.
She fled outside of town to hide in the bush, moving between houses to avoid the violence.
Antoinette even found a secure spot near an unoccupied toilet, when she overheard troops metres away boasting about the number of Tutsis they had slain.
Antoinette claims to have seen “the bodies of people being fed to these dogs, and dogs eating them” while fleeing capture for three months.
“Sitting, petrified, knowing that if they notice me, they will bite me, I was really terrified,”
Antoinette speculated that if someone didn’t have any money to hand them, the killers would slice off their heads or shoot them even if they paid up.
“They didn’t even have that kindness to forgive,” she recalled, “so they hacked off people’s heads in front of me and put them in that large pit that was there.”
Antoinette recalled fleeing into the road to save her own life before collapsing and being beaten with a large nail-spiked stick.
She further claimed that the killers’ attention was diverted moments before she was executed when word broke that a bank in the capital had been stolen, allowing her to flee.
Antoinette confessed that her mother and younger brother – who was just 2 years old – had been slain while hiding together, despite the fact that one of her older brothers and her father had survived.
The Hutsi killers discovered and set fire to their underground hideout, according to the survivor.
Antoinette now shares her story with organizations such as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. The news is summarized by Brinkwire.
