Claudine Mukakarisa, a 27-year old Rwandan woman, was recounting her life. Born in a Tutsi family of 12 children in the southern city of Butare, Claudine went to Kigali in 1993 to look for her sister, who had been taken there forcibly by the Interahamwe (the Interahamwe was the militia group who were the perpetrators of the genocide.) Claudine was 14. She found her sister, but ended up getting caught by the Interahamwe too. For the next year, she and her sister were tied up and continually violated by the soldiers, one after the other. “We became their sexual slaves,” she said, “Men would just come in and do what they like.” They were assaulted so much that they developed wounds all over. “We started rotting. We had wounds in our reproductive areas. Maggots were crawling out of our reproductive organs.”
When the Interahamwe cut off her sister’s leg, Claudine thought she no longer wanted to live. The sisters decided to escape by tying the remaining leg of the sister to Claudine’s leg, and managed to crawl to the edge of the lake. However, they could not commit suicide: the lake was already filled with dead bodies. This was 1994, and the genocide had begun. The Interahamwe caught up with them soon after, and while Claudine was able to escape, her sister was not. Claudine saw her die in front of her eyes.
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