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Rwanda genocide: 'I forgave my husband's killer - our children married' (bbc.com)

 

To heal you must love - so believes a woman who not only forgave the man who killed her husband 28 years ago during Rwanda's genocide, but allowed his daughter to marry her son.

Bernadette Mukakabera has been telling her story as part of continuing efforts by the Catholic Church to bring reconciliation to a society torn apart in 1994 when some 800,000 people were slaughtered in 100 days.

"Our children had nothing to do with what happened. They just fell in love and nothing should stop people from loving each other," Bernadette told the BBC.

She and her husband Kabera Vedaste were from the Tutsi community, who were targeted after an aeroplane carrying Rwanda's ethnic Hutu president was shot down on 6 April 1994.

Within hours, thousands of Hutus, indoctrinated by decades of hateful propaganda, began well organised killings - turning on their Tutsi neighbours around the country.

One of these was Gratien Nyaminani, whose family lived next to Bernadette's in Mushaka in western Rwanda. They were both farmers.

To read more of Yves Bucyana's article, please click here.

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