A Journey of Survival and Service
Placide Uwiragiye’s story is one of resilience, survival, and a deep commitment to helping others. Born in Kirehe, he was just six years old when he witnessed the horrors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. During this tragic period, he was shot in both legs, left for dead among the bodies, and eventually rescued by a soldier from the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) Inkotanyi. This act of kindness gave him a second chance at life, which he has since dedicated to service and rebuilding his country.
Today, as Rwanda commemorates Kwibohora 32, marking 32 years since the RPA Inkotanyi halted the genocide, Uwiragiye reflects on how far he has come. From a child survivor to a man determined to help rebuild lives and strengthen communities, his journey is a testament to the power of hope and perseverance.
Building Homes and Strengthening Communities
Uwiragiye has helped 17 vulnerable families build homes and hopes to connect them to clean water. He sees this as a way to contribute to Rwanda’s reconstruction and honor the life that RPA Inkotanyi soldiers saved. His commitment to helping others deepened after a visit to Gahini in 2015 while living in Kigali. At the time, he was working as a tour guide for a foreign visitor who supported vulnerable families by donating goats. The encounter challenged him.
“I asked myself how a foreigner could contribute to rebuilding Rwanda while I was doing nothing,” he recalls. “From that moment, I decided I also had a responsibility to help those in need.”
Since then, he has personally supported the construction of homes for 17 vulnerable families. “I would rather give what I have to struggling families than keep it for myself,” he says. “I can struggle alone, but I cannot watch an entire family continue to suffer.”
Memories That Never Fade
Looking back on 1994, Uwiragiye says life changed almost overnight. “We were happy children who spent our days playing together,” he recalls. Then, they saw houses being burned and people fleeing to Nyarubuye Church. News soon spread that neighbors had been killed in the nearby Nyarutunga area.
Like many others, his family sought refuge at Nyarubuye Church, where hundreds had gathered. According to Uwiragiye, the first attacks were resisted by adults sheltering there. But more attackers later arrived, armed with grenades and guns. They opened fire on people who had nothing to defend themselves with.
“We had no way to save ourselves. Many people were killed, while others fled to a nearby school and the nuns’ residence.” His family sought shelter in the nuns’ compound. The Interahamwe militia entered carrying traditional weapons, dragged people from their hiding places, and killed them.
Uwiragiye watched as his father was pulled outside and murdered. After witnessing the killing, his mother tried to flee with him clinging to her clothes. She was caught, but he managed to run. As he escaped, he was shot in both legs. He fell to the ground, and other fleeing victims collapsed on top of him.
“The killers continued killing the people lying over me,” he recalls. A relative later recognized him among the bodies, pulled him out, and carried him to another family. They arrived at night, but the family refused to shelter him. They told him to leave ‘the snake’ behind, Uwiragiye says.
Unable to walk because of his injuries, he crawled from one hiding place to another, sheltering beneath trees. Grenade fragments remained lodged in both of his legs from the knees down. His family had been killed, and he had nowhere to go.
A Lifesaving Rescue
He says Interahamwe militia members, led by a man he identifies as Pascal, found him twice but left him alive because they believed he was already dying. After about three days, he crawled to the home of a white woman named Charlotte, who cared for orphaned children. She told him she was not allowed to hide anyone, but she gave him a blanket and let him sleep on her porch.
He remained there for several days as his wounds became badly infected. When the killers later searched the property, they found and killed two young men. After removing Uwiragiye’s blanket and seeing the condition of his legs, they concluded he would soon die and left him.
The moment everything changed. Uwiragiye vividly remembers the sounds that signalled his rescue. “At around 3 a.m., I heard heavy gunfire, children crying, goats bleating and people running,” he says. Around 4 a.m., RPA Inkotanyi soldiers arrived. One soldier, wearing a kitenge cloth around his neck, approached him with a torch. He spoke to me, removed my blanket, lifted me onto his back, and carried me to a vehicle that took me to Kibungo Hospital.
At the hospital, he learned that his elder sister, Valentine Iribagiza, had also survived and was receiving treatment. “All we could do was trust God to help us recover,” he says. He did, and today we are alive. Of the family’s eight members, including six children, only three survived. He lost his parents, his elder brother Epaphrodite Ndacyayisenga, his sisters Elvanie and another younger sister. Valentine had suffered severe injuries after her fingers were cut off and she sustained wounds to her head and back. She too had been rescued by Inkotanyi soldiers after being found among the dead.
Giving Back and Inspiring Others
After the Genocide against the Tutsi, Uwiragiye and the other surviving children lived in several orphanages, including ETO Kibungo, Saint Joseph, and Gahini. It was at Gahini that doctors removed grenade fragments from his legs. Around 1997 and 1998, he and the surviving children went to live with an uncle who had also survived. Later, they discovered that their paternal aunt, Leoncie Kagwesage, had survived despite losing all three of her children. Her youngest child was killed while she unknowingly carried the body on her back throughout the day. She still struggles with trauma and receives government support, he says.
Uwiragiye’s message to fellow Rwandans is that everyone has a role to play in the country’s development. “The government has given us security and infrastructure,” he says. “It is now our responsibility to make good use of those opportunities, create jobs, help others, and continue building Rwanda.”
His support is not limited to survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi. “I help vulnerable Rwandans regardless of their background because unity means supporting everyone in need,” he adds. Among those he has assisted is a man who spent 15 years in prison and returned home to find his house had collapsed, leaving him living under a single sheet of corrugated iron. “I never looked at his past,” Uwiragiye says. “He is a Rwandan who deserves a better life.”
