Samuel Dusengiyumva remained alone

The Genocide against the Tutsi left many Rwandans alone. However most of them have built a strong faith and commitment to live productively both to them and to the nation as whole.

UM– USEKE asked some of them how they survived, they endured the post-genocide period, 20 years ago and what they achieved and they still undergo as challenges.

Samuel Dusengiyumva:

During the genocide he was 13 years old and studied at Save, the Former Ntongwe, in the current Ruhango district in the Southern Province.

His father was an evangelist while mother was a medical care provider in a local health centre

He was the eldest brother among five brothers and sisters. All of them were killed and he survived alone.

After the genocide, life was hard for him because of the new living situations where he had to endure all difficulties alone while he had an economically strong family before the genocide.

At school, he was discouraged by the lack of family motivational backups and he had no real and clear purpose in life.

In1997 he had been chased away the school authorities due to his disciplinal misbehaviors resulting from the negative living conditions he were living in and the sad history he had undergone.

One year later he took time and reflected about his behaviors and took a firm resolution to stop it once for all and start a new life full of hope and achievements.

He became a successful student who completed his secondary studies and got a scholarship to university. At University he learnt law studies that he completed successfully. He is currently a lawyer.

For him the secret is a simple: Double your efforts at 200 per cent.

If others provide 100 per cent of efforts to achieve, make sure your efforts are twice superior to theirs, he advises.

He said that the journey continues for a better future that will prove the killers that the flame of hope to honor his beloved ones killed in the genocide still lights.

Samuel Dusengiyumva is currently a lawyer who works in the Umbrella of Lawyers in Rwanda.  He is a husband and a father of two children.

He buried one of his parents in 2004. Since 2010 he provided efforts to bury 60000 bodies of Tutsi killed in Kinazi, Ruhango District. Those bodies will be buried on April, 19, this year.

He advises the survivors that their lives are in their own hands and that none will care about them unless they show their commitment for better present and future living conditions.

UM– USEKE.RW