A day in the marshes

We hid the children in small groups
"In the morning, we could not even give ourselves a little moment to dry out in the rising sun. We went off again, soaked through, to deposit the children in little groups under the cover of the papyrus. We told them to stay as nice as fish in the ponds – meaning not to put more than a head out of the water and not to cry. We gave them muddy water to drink, even if it were sometimes tinged with blood.

Then, in our turn we covered ourselves in mud. Sometimes, we would glimpse one another through the surrounding foliage. We asked ourselves why God had forsaken us here, in the midst of snakes, which fortunately did not bite anyone."

Killing all day long
“We went down very early. The little ones hid first, the grown-ups acted as look-outs and talked about the disaster that had befallen us... they were the last to hide. Then there was killing all day long. In the beginning, the Hutus played tricks in the papyrus, for example they said, “I've recognised you, you can come out” and the most innocent got up and were massacred standing. Or else Hutus were guided by the cries of little children, who could not stand the mud anymore…"

Calm and accomplished killings
"In the afternoon they (the killers) would not sing anymore because they were tired, but chatting away, they returned to their homes. They fortified themselves with drink and by eating the cows that they had slaughtered at the same time as the Tutsis. These were truly very calm and accomplished killings. If the RPF liberators had delayed one week more on the road, there would not be a single Bugesera Tutsi left living to deny the lies, such as the criminals' so-called drunkenness."

Angélique Mukamanzi

Less-than-nothings
"When we spotted a small group of runaways trying to escape by creeping through the mud, we called them snakes. Before the killings, we usually called them cockroaches. But during, it was more suitable to call them snakes, because of their attitude, or zeros, or dogs, because in our country we don’t like dogs; in any case, they were less-than-nothings.

For some of us, those taunts were just minor diversions. The important thing was not to let them get away. For others, the insults were invigorating, made the job easier. The perpetrators felt more comfortable insulting and hitting crawlers in rags rather than properly upright people. Because they seemed less like us in that position."

Adalbert

Gathering food at night
"In the evening, after the killings, we scattered out into the night to dig in fields, collection manioc and beans. It was also the banana season. We ate raw for a month, hands filthy with mud, like louts.

It was the same fate for adults as for little children, who no longer had the opportunity to drink maternal milk or other nutritious substances. So, many people, even though not struck by machetes, were sprung by a deadly weakness. In the morning, we woke and we found them, lying beside us, stiffened in their sleep. And we, without a word of farewell for them, without a last gift from time, were unable to cover them decently.

"On certain evenings, when the evil-doers had not killed too much that day, we gathered around glowing embers to eat something cooked; on other evenings, we were too dispirited. In the marsh, at dawn the next day, we found the same blood in the mud... corpses going off in the same places.

These corpses offended our spirits to such an extent that, even amongst ourselves, we did not dare speak of them. They all too bluntly showed us how our own life would end. Which is the reason why our utmost wish in the morning was simply to make it through to the end of the afternoon one more time.”

Many of the quotes on this page from The Survivors speak AND The killers speak by Jean Hatzfeld. Images by Dave Fullerton