The Wave

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Thousands of children have fled to The Refugees of Rwanda after the genocide

This is the story of three little boys, almost lost in The Wave of People fleeing the violence that engulfed Rwanda in 1994.

It is also the story of How To achieve a radio broadcast cut through The Fear and chaos across borders and decades, to them from The Dead , and home to their families.

"you again, hope Among Us ," Theo genes Koreger told the BBC disappeared, 25 years after his nephew.

"does not reach The Message where we can reach you messages transmitted we could not have otherwise. "

This story begins with the end of the genocide in Rwanda. One Hundred Days of murder and rape done of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu was estimated to be dead.

hundreds of thousands more had fled their homes In Search of safety and, among these, were the estimated 120,000 children are separated from their families.

Mugabo and his Little Brother Tuyishimire were just two of the 40,000 who had crossed to find the limit of safety. And Mugabo - with just seven years of age, had household The Head of his tiny remaining.

After All , The Last job his mother had given him before she died, according to Tuyishimire, who was a Toddler Still .

Mugabo (left) and Tuyishimire, photographed by the Red cross, while in the DR of Congo, But now they were Alone in the, what is the Democratic Republic of the Congo is now, and struggling to survive in one of the refugee camps, the Christ had borders along the to Rwanda.

"could We live on begging, tomatoes and fish," he recalls, a note of Defiance and Pride Still in his voice, the 25 years later.

But the camps were dangerous places: The Million refugees who had sought shelter, it may have survived to fight the genocide, But now it was cholera, and diarrhea.

tens of thousands more would die before they were able to Go Home .

"The camps were bad, bad. There are diseases were everywhere," Rene Mukuruwabu told the BBC, he is sitting in a garden in Kigali, to flee miles from The Place where he and His Family came to an end When they were forced to.

Rene , in some ways, was one of the lucky ones: His Family was intact, When you arrived in Tanzania in the year 1994.

But then his father disappeared and his mother had to help a clinic for the sick, was found to be one of the stock many People the death.

In the blink of an eye, his had become Family , just him, his Little Brother , Fabrice, and her step-sister.

And it's just another moment for the five-year-Old Rene would find herself all Alone .

Rene lost His Family in a refugee camp in Tanzania in 1994 After the genocide ended In July 1994, humanitarian organizations were confronted with a plethora of problems - How To heal the wounded, to feed the hungry, to house the homeless.

And as for the reunification of the children lost their families.

But - in a time long before The Internet or cell phones, if the People of a country is nothing, When in turmoil - how do you start to find, to leave The Family she had?

"It's the idea of Neville Harms, The Head of the BBC Swahili Service in the year 1994," Ally Yusuf Mugenzi was declared. "He has decided to have a lifeline-a project to reunite families that were miss. "

And so a plan was hatched to create a short, 15-minute program broadcast by the BBC in Rwanda and the surrounding countries. It would start with a message and be followed by People appealing for their missing relatives.

in fact, they put together was, of course, not so easy, and involved working with the Red cross, which is recorded, And Then send the short tapes in the studio.

", We would run, the votes of the People from these camps," says Mugenzi, who was one of the two moderators.

It would end up with the name Gahuzamiryango, in the sense of "the unifier of families" and was The First broadcast 25 years ago. It should take only three months. The deadline, however, came very quickly and went.

More about the genocide: The Last time Rene laid eyes on His Family , they were on the way back in the direction of Rwanda. And Then they were gone.

"Can you imagine, a child who is lost?", he asks. "I cried, to lose hope. I could see a lot of People , But I could not see any of my relatives. "

by the time he was swept by the helper, he had lost the ability to speak.

"you asked for my name, my address. But to lose because of The Fear and the hope and trust I could not talk. "

He did not speak again for months, so he went through the orphanages filled with children that had found him, Alone in The World .

But then, if his world had paths in resistance, with an adoptive Family -a voice reached through the breath.

"My neighbor came running to tell me, you read my name on the radio," he recalls. He ran to listen to his neighbors house for yourself.

"you were reading the name - my name. "

"I couldn't remember my name, But I could remember, my young brother's name," Mugabo shows how he shows the BBC discovered a picture of the two little boys, the Red cross, lives Alone in the DR Congo.

But it was enough: back in Kigali, her uncle Theo genes, The Announcement heard on the radio.

"As I Heard from the radio, I thought it was a message from heaven," he says, the memory Still making him smile, almost a quarter of a century later.

"This is because the People who had been here in Rwanda, there is no communication, we had no news from Anywhere . "

Mugabo and Tuyishimire were initially going to be anxious to get home, But listen to the name, only The First part of a long journey to bring The Boys home. The country was Still torn by the conflict, and the streets were dangerous.

But , above all, The Boys were to come back scared.

"I got The Letter from My Uncle , that was in Rwanda and that he wanted us to see. But I refused," says Mugabo.

"I saw My Father die, I saw My Mother die, so why should I go again?"

And there was something else: his uncle was a soldier with the Rwandan Patriotic Front - the Tutsi rebel army took power in Rwanda and end the genocide. And those soldiers, Mugabo was taught, Growing Up , were the cockroaches that had tails.

But his uncle Still had One More card to play: he sent a picture of yourself and one of your brothers. It was enough: after a year in The Jungle , Mugabo and Tuyishimire went home.

Rene don't know why he do something When he heard his name on the radio all these years. The Fear may be: he knew he had a Happy Life with his adoptive Family . Maybe this was safer.

And yet, it gave him a slither of hope, that maybe someone was Out There looking for him.

"It was always in my thoughts," he says now. "I wanted to hear it again on the radio, But it never came. "

It made him stop in his name, even if his adoptive mother suggested that he could How To change it, so he could really be a part of The Family .

And so, When he entered it, in Facebook, More Than 15 years later, he has to wonder if anyone can find it. He didn't have to wait long for his answer.

"I put my name on the on Saturday, and on Sunday, she found me. "

AFPRwanda' s genocide

6. April 1994President Habyarimana, a Hutu, was killed in the plane explosion

About 100 Days Hutu extremists to kill around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

4. In July 1994, the Tutsi-led RPF rebels capture the capital Kigali

flee, Two million Hutus, Zaire, now Democratic Republic of the Congo, try the revenge attacks

93ringleaders youth sentence of a UN tribunal

12,000 community courts, More Than 1. 2 million suspects

source: BBC/UN"In 1995, we have been trying to find him," Rene 's uncle Charles says the BBC. "We have to find him, But we have not forgotten him. We thought that he was dead. We left him in the story.

"And Then , 18 years later, it was like a miracle for us, he was Still alive. "

It was Rene 's cousin Olivier, the found him on Facebook - it was him, to say that His Family had returned to The Boy left in the history. He was not a boy any more, But The Family were in little doubt that he was there.

"you look like your Younger Brother ," said Olivier Rene , the First Time they met. "It's you, No Doubt . "

This was the First Time since the pair were separated, all of the years that Rene knew for sure that his brother had survived.

Rene and his Younger Brother , Fabrice, who was bought to combine to the home of the relatives by his step-sister were reunited in 2012, shipments are not the only way, the Red cross and other aid agencies tried to, children with families. Photos were shared were made of the lists and the children were also driven to find from village to village, to their families.

But The Work is Still Going on.

As is the case with the BBC radio Service , that is, even though it reads out The Names of the lost.

rwandan genocide, rwanda

Source of news: bbc.com