Rwanda native shares story of survival, forgiveness to people who killed her family


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SALT LAKE CITY — Not only did Immaculee Ilibagiza survive the genocide in her homeland of Rwanda, she also forgave the people who killed her family.

From April to July in 1994, nearly one million people were killed in Rwanda when the majority Hutus tribe tried to exterminate the minority Tutsi tribe.

At the time, Ilibagiza was 23 years old and lived with her parents and two of her brothers. When the genocide began, her father insisted she seek refuge with a pastor who was a Hutu but sympathetic to his Tutsi neighbors. Ilibagiza obliged.

For three months, she hid with seven other women in a 3 by 4-foot bathroom in the pastor’s home.

“I remember one time they came to search for us, they stopped up to the door of the bathroom and one of the killers touched the handle and he told the man who was hiding us, ‘we trust you,’” Ilibagiza recalled. “And I remember I was begging God, ‘if you exist, just don’t let them open this door.’”

That moment gave Ilibagiza a very personal experience with God, she said.

The men from the Hutus tribe never opened the door, which meant Ilibagiza and the other women were safe. But when they came out they learned everyone else they knew—family, friends, even neighbors—had been killed.

Despite the tragic news and circumstances, the whole experience gave Ilibagiza a stronger sense of faith.

“During that time I was in the bathroom, it was then I cried to God like I never did,” she said.

Ilibagiza studied the Bible and said phrases like “love one another” and “forgive those who trespass against us” jumped out at her.

“And when He said, ‘forgive them, Father, they don’t know what they do,’ it was like a light in my heart,” Ilibagiza said referring to Jesus Christ on the cross.

Immaculee Ilibagiza lost her entire family during the Rwanda genocide in 1994. (Courtesy: Immaculee Ilibagiza)
Immaculee Ilibagiza lost her entire family during the Rwanda genocide in 1994. (Courtesy: Immaculee Ilibagiza)

Ilibagiza had been a faithful Catholic all of her life and during that experience, she realized she wanted to be like Mother Teresa, and not like the people who killed her family. In that moment, a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, she said.

“In this suffering, I truly understood who was God,” Ilibagiza said. “If you haven’t needed anything so badly, you don’t know how it can come through. Now I can live, I can think about my life, more than think about who am I going to kill? And how am I going to (get) revenge? It was beautiful.”

Ilibagiza began working for the United Nations afterward, first in Rwanda and then in the U.S. She now travels the world as a motivational speaker to share her story at conferences, churches and schools. She stands with those who preach peace, she said.

“People who have suffered but who defend love, truth, kindness, no matter how much evil has been done to them.”

Ilibagiza has written seven books and received the Gandhi Peace Award. She became a U.S. citizen in 2013. Her focus now is raising funds for a school in Rwanda. She believes educating the next generation will help children seek to do good in the world.

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