Rwanda’s lessons learned

Genocide survivor now shifting her focus toward Darfur

BOSTON. When Carine Gakuba was 8 years old, she hid in the swamps of Rwanda and watched as her 13-year-old brother was shot in the head 10 feet away by Hutu forces.

For three more months, Gakuba lived in those swamps with her older sister, separated from the rest of her family, and every day fearing she would be discovered and brutally killed.

“We would hide early in the morning and they would come and try to find people to kill. It was luck, I guess, they never found us,” said Gakuba, a junior at the University of New Hampshire at Durham.

Gakuba survived the genocide in 1994, but lost her parents and five other siblings.
“You think about it a lot. Your life has two parts, there’s a before and an after.”

Gakuba will join a group of other genocide survivors, from Bosnia, Cambodia and the Sudan in Government Center Sunday calling for more action in stopping the genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. During the torch-lighting ceremony and rally, which is similar to ones that have taken place around the world in the past year, the survivors will call on the Chinese government to use their influence in Sudan. China is hosting the Olympics in 2008 and has close ties to Sudan.

“I feel like I have more responsibility because I know what those people are going through. I should be out there doing something,” Gakuba said.

After surviving the genocide, Gakuba was adopted by family friends and eventually moved with them to the United States in 2003.

In some ways, she said, it’s hard to be away from Rwanda because she can relate to the people there who have also lost so much. But now, she is able to live her life without the constant reminders of her past.

“I sort of believe there is only so much that can go wrong in someone’s life. I’ve already done my part. …I’m looking forward to my future.”