In the years before and the first months of the year 1994, the Hutus and Tutsis stood as enemies but lived in peace in their own share of Rwanda, but little did the Tutsis know about what the Hutus were planning in the short years before.

Malika, an eighteen year old Tutsi girl, walked around in her house on the quiet, sunny morning of April 6th, 1994, helping her parents get the house ready for a visit from her aunt and uncle. That night, after welcoming them and chatting away, as Malika was getting ready for dinner, she heard her dad whisper to her mother, aunt, uncle, and her to quietly walk outside. There, as she stood peeking through the fence, she saw the dreaded sight of a Hutu group dragging her neighbors’ father from his home. She guessed that he did not pay them back for something, as this kind of vigilante gang behavior happens every now and then. As she turned to go back inside, knowing that this would end as usual—the Hutus would take the Tutsi father with them and force his family back inside; if they fail to cooperate, the Hutus would proceed to hurt, or even kill, one of the family members to warn them—but she stopped her tracks and thoughts right as she saw the horrible sight of Hutu men running out of buses with machetes and few with guns in their hands, killing anyone they saw in their path. Before she could react, her father pulled everyone back inside, and the next full night, she was so tired and confused that all she remembered was screaming and shouting and people running away, many getting shot in their tracks, as she sat in her father’s car while he quickly drove away to who knows where.

Kristalf, a 19 year old Hutu boy, sat cleaning the illegally imported machetes with his old “friends” the morning of April 6th, 1994. Unlike the other Hutus, Kristalf hated living with the other Hutus and even having the title of a Hutu. Kristalf had loved peace all his life...

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