Nabasumba Proscovia
For Proscovia Ndahayo Godijourne, a 36-year-old resident of Kyamuyinula, Nakaseke District, the Kwibuka season is a painful reminder of the 1994 Rwanda genocide that left him homeless and traumatized. As the anniversary of the genocide approaches, Ndahayo’s memories of the horrific event come flooding back, triggering intense emotions and trauma.
“I remember the faces of my father’s tormentors,” Ndahayo says, recalling the day his father was brutally killed in front of him. “He was tall and black. He entered and had a short argument with my father. The next thing I heard was my father wailing in pain and stopped all of a sudden; he had been hacked on the neck, and he was no more.”
Ndahayo, who was just five years old at the time, vividly remembers the trauma and hardships he endured during the genocide. His family sought sanctuary in various locations, enduring bombings and attacks on places that were supposed to provide safety. The fear was palpable, and Ndahayo’s mother showed great resilience, trying desperately to protect her children while dealing with the trauma of losing her husband.
As Ndahayo grew older, he struggled with anger and unresolved turmoil, searching for peace and reconciliation. “I developed an intense hatred for those responsible for my family’s suffering at an early age,” he says. “Vivid nightmares of the genocide haunted me, panga-wielding men, babies ground in motors, and people slit with pangas, all brought illness that resulted in periodic loss of consciousness due to the grief that led me to yearn for vengeance.”
Today, Ndahayo lives with his mother, wife, and five children in Uganda, which he considers home. However, the Kwibuka season brings back painful memories, and he is reminded of everything he lost in his childhood. “Kwibuka is a pain that I have learnt to live with,” he says.
Kwibuka is an annual commemoration in Rwanda that marks the anniversary of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The term “Kwibuka” means “to remember” in Kinyarwanda, the national language of Rwanda.
The 1994 Rwanda Genocide was a brutal and devastating mass slaughter that occurred in Rwanda, a small country in East Africa. The genocide took place from April to July 1994, during which an estimated 800,000 people, primarily from the Tutsi ethnic group, were killed by the Hutu majority.
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