French version of Survive by a miracle by Pauline Kayitare.
 
 
Pauline was thirteen years old when the Tutsi genocide broke out in Rwanda in April 1994. She lived in Karongi prefecture, one of the most affected.
The country is on fire. Everywhere, Tutsis are being hunted and murdered. To increase their chances of escaping the killers, the family decides to disperse. Pauline, lost in the heart of barbarity, will witness unheard-of massacres, but will manage to escape. Of her five brothers and sisters, she is the only one to survive.
Three decades have passed, but in Pauline's memory, it feels like yesterday. She remembers playing on the shores of Lake Kivu, in Kinyonza, in western Rwanda, with her brothers and sisters: Innocent, aged fifteen, Joseph, aged eleven, Joséphine, aged nine, Séraphine, aged seven, and Patric, aged only three. She looks back, with a smile, at unforgettable memories of all her family: her mother Félicité, her grandmother Pursikira, her maternal uncle Naphtal, her grandfather Ruhago, her family, her friends, and her Tutsi neighbors. Like more than one million three hundred thousand Tutsi, they were murdered in Rwanda by an extremist Hutu government that had planned this genocide for more than thirty years.
Often alone in the midst of chaos, Pauline now realizes the miracle of still being alive. She conveys a message, especially for all those in need: we must keep hope in all circumstances.
Pauline is now a mother of two daughters and lives in Brussels. You can invite her to your schools, associations and companies to hear her universal testimony. She will also share information about today's Rwanda, a country transformed into a land of peace and dignity thanks to the strength of character of just men and women.
This work was prefaced by Colette Braeckman and written in collaboration with Patric May and André Versaille.