“The Truth Crosses the Fire”: Rwandan Genocide Survivor Jeanne Uwimbabazi Speaks at Paris Memorial Inauguration
PARIS — Speaking at the inauguration of a new monument in Paris honoring the victims of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, survivor Jeanne Uwimbabazi delivered a searing and emotional testimony detailing her survival, the betrayal by international forces, and the ongoing need for localized justice.
The ceremony took place nearly 32 years to the day after Uwimbabazi, then a severely wounded 16-year-old, was evacuated to Orly, France, alongside 31 other children by the humanitarian organization Médecins du Monde on June 5, 1994. Addressing an audience that included the French President, Uwimbabazi described the new memorial as a “symbolic reparation” against the attempted annihilation of the Tutsi and a vital educational tool for future generations to understand and question the past.
In her speech, Uwimbabazi painted a heartbreaking contrast between the days before the genocide and the horrors that followed. In early April 1994, her family in Kigali was joyfully preparing for the April 10 baptism of her 11-month-old niece, Ornela. However, late on the night of April 6, following the downing of President Habyarimana’s plane, her family was informed that militias were erecting barricades. By 5:00 a.m. the next morning, her father urged the family to hide, but he was assassinated right outside their home by the then Rwandan army.
Fleeing in a panic and separated from her relatives, Uwimbabazi eventually negotiated her way into the École Technique Officielle (ETO), a base for UN peacekeepers. What initially felt like safety soon culminated in a profound betrayal. On April 11, UN soldiers evacuated Western civilians from the compound. To facilitate their own departure alongside arriving French military personnel, the UN soldiers actively tricked the approximately 2,000 predominantly Tutsi refugees, inviting them inside the buildings under the guise that lunch was being served.
As the refugees realized the troops were fleeing, sheer panic ensued. Desperate people threw themselves in front of the military vehicles, but the soldiers fired their weapons in the air and departed, leaving the refugees to the surrounding militias. “They all left and abandoned us,” she recounted, noting that their mere presence would have been enough to protect the civilians.
The abandoned refugees were then marched by militias to a neighborhood called Nyanza, where a horrific massacre took place. It was at Nyanza that Uwimbabazi’s world was completely dislocated; she lost her 46-year-old mother, Angéline, her 19-year-old sister, Marie-José, and numerous extended family members and childhood friends.
Severely wounded by a machete, Uwimbabazi survived by hiding in the grass until she was discovered by soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). She specifically credited an RPF soldier named Victor, who spent hours patiently feeding her and “literally breathed life” back into her when she had given up hope. In a poignant moment of her speech, she directly addressed Rwandan President Paul Kagame, thanking him and his men for pulling the survivors from “annihilation”.
After rebuilding her life with a host family in the south of France, Uwimbabazi dedicated herself to combating the powerful waves of genocide denial alongside the association Ibuka. Quoting a Rwandan proverb to the audience, she stated, “The truth crosses the fire but does not burn in it”.
Concluding her powerful address, Uwimbabazi acknowledged that recent convictions of génocidaires in France mark an important step forward, but she made a firm plea for future trials to be held in Rwanda. She argued that holding trials in nearly empty French courtrooms gives the painful impression that justice is exercised at a distance, depriving survivors and victims’ families of the necessary opportunity to confront the facts and properly mourn.
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