25 April, 2007 - Published 14:46 GMT
Remembering the genocide - Mama Sania and Odette
Outlook has marked the 13th-anniversary of the Rwandan genocide by talking to a remarkable Hutu woman who saved many Tutsi lives.
Mama Sania, also known as Sifa, appeared on the programme with one of the women who she rescued in April 1994 - a Tutsi woman called Odette.
Odette had been in Kigali visiting friends when these friends betrayed her to the Hutu Interahamwe.
"They put me with a crowd of people they had arrested," recalled Odette, "They lined us up according to our height and then they started shooting us in rows.
"I was in the middle so when they reached the second line, I became frightened and fell to the ground... Many of the bodies fell on me. This continued late into the night.
"Towards morning, I heard somebody's voice. I was alive, but I was covered in blood and dead bodies were heavy on me."
One of the Interhamwe took pity on Odette and said that she should make her way to the house of an elderly woman - and this was Mama Sania.
"I remember saying to one of my daughters that I thought there was a girl outside, and that there was no room to hide this girl in the house," said Mama Sania, "I had a bad feeling that this time I was going to be found out, that the Interahamwe would find the people I was shielding, and kill them in my house.
"My daughter said to me: 'Put her with the others. If they find her and kill you, then they will kill her as well as the other people hiding here. But you should not refuse to hide her when you have other people hiding in the house.'
"So we opened the door for her."
Mama Sania said that she acted as she did partly because of her Muslim faith and partly because her husband was a Tutsi.
"My husband was Tutsi," she said, "He was handsome and good. We had children together and some of these children are still living today. I felt I could not betray any Tutsi. How could I?"
She said that she was never fearful and that she had been prepared to die if necessary to protect the people in her care.
"When the Interahamwe arrived to search the house," she said, "I would quickly rush to bring them food so that they would eat and leave. They trusted me because I was a Hutu like them.
"In their presence I cursed Tutsis and shouted that I didn't even know any."
Odette is still overwhelmed that Mama Sania saved her life.
"She saw that I was young and needed to live," she said, "I am very sure that if she had not helped me I would have died. When I look at my own children today, I remember that if I had died, they would not have been born."
And she welcomes the call earlier this month by the president of Rwanda's High Court, Johnston Busingye, for recognition for the moderate Hutus who, at great danger to themselves, committed such acts of heroism.
"I am glad that there is this call for recognition for those people who saved others," she said, "It is an action that gives respect to the Hutus. It shows the world that not all the Hutus took part in the genocide."
Mama Sania sheltered over 40 Tutsis during the genocide but Odette has a special place in her heart.
"Today, she is like another daughter to me," she said, "She feeds me like somebody feeding a hen they keep inside their house. I always have food.
"She gives me sugar, rice, money ….you name it. This child is so good to me I swear - allah!"
Do you know of people who have been similarly heroic? Write to the programme to let us know.
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