Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY -- A BYU student who just graduated this summer also just had his first book published. What is even more impressive is the story his book tells: his experience escaping genocide in Africa.
John Yves Bizimana just earned an economics degree at Brigham Young University.
We took the mattress and put them in the hallway and spent the night in there because the bullets could have gone through the windows.
–John Yves Bizimana
"It's one of the biggest accomplishments I have," he says.
As a young boy growing up in Rwanda, Bizimana did not have many opportunities In 1994, a plane carrying Rwanda's president was shot down, sparking genocide.
"There had been a history of tension between two ethnic groups -- the Tutsis and Hutus," Bizimana says.
News reports state 800,000 people were killed in the space of 100 days. Bizimana was 7 years old.
"We took the mattress and put them in the hallway and spent the night in there because the bullets could have gone through the windows," he recalls.
Bizimana's mother took the children from village to village; his father had passed away.
She saw some corpuses in the river and decided it was time to leave," Bizimana says. "That is when we took off for Zaire."
The country is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. From there it was onto Tanzania and Zimbabwe, living off people's kindness and the grace of God.
Eventually, the family settled in Belgium where other relatives were living.
"I met missionaries from the LDS Church," Bizimana says.
That's how he heard about BYU. He says it was only by a miracle that he was accepted to the university.
"I didn't even graduate high school, you know? I didn't see myself going to college," Bizimana says.
He is now the first college graduate in his family, works full time in market research and hopes his story inspires others.
"No matter how tough life gets, you can survive," he says. "I think dreams come true."
You can buy John's book, "Escape from Rwanda" at Deseret Book and Barnes and Noble stores.
E-mail: abutterfield@ksl.com
