Coexist-Documentary Film Outreach Project

Survivor Stories: Felesta

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“Whenever April comes, I remember what happened to me, almost every day the whole month.”

FELESTA

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The Interahamwe, or Hutu militia captured Felesta Mukasangwa as she and her husband tried to escape Rwanda and cross the border into nearby Tanzania. Killers beat her husband, but spared his life. He had been a driver and now is too crippled to work.

Then the three men raped Felesta, leaving the mother of six unable to have more children. She says that, “Whenever April comes, I remember what happened to me, almost every day, the whole month.”

But yet she has reconciled with her neighbors.

She speaks softly and steadily as she shares that more than 100 of her relatives were killed during the genocide, still she says “We feel the only way of living peacefully in your heart is to forgive, so we are no longer angry,” She adds, “I’m ready to forgive whoever I can see.”

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