The Rwandan Woman Who Saved 100 Lives

The Rwandan Woman Who Saved 100 Lives

"It was a Friday," she says, "it was sometime in April." The militiamen were burning houses. One neighbour's house after another was going up in flames. The men, women and children who rushed out of the burning houses were killed and left to die in the road.

With deep courage, enormous strength and a set of keys, an uneducated woman named Mama Zula Karuhimbi, born in 1915, managed to save the lives of 100 people. She kept them hidden for 67 days during the 1994 ethnic genocide in Rwanda. She offered them shelter in her house in Gitarama, the country's second-largest city, one of the places most affected by the horrible violence.

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