The Tears of a Thousand Hills

In the spring of 1994, massacres on a massive scale in Rwanda resulted in thousands of deaths among the two ethnic groups, Tutsis and Hutus, who were torn apart. As a member of the Sovereign Order of Malta, like my wife, we were appointed to lead an evaluation mission in order to consider the establishment of the Order to help and rescue the refugees driven out of their country. On 6 July 1994, we left for Bukavu, a town on the border with Rwanda. This mission was suddenly transformed into a mission of action as millions of refugees flooded into Bukavu. This book describes the different phases that led us, out of obligation, to create and then manage, in an emergency and without means, a first camp of 5,000 refugees. Two other camps were subsequently entrusted to us. We recount in detail the different stages of our mission, which required rapid and often risky decisions.