On the morning of Friday, August 8, 1997, security forces killed an estimated 400 people at Mahoko market. Brigitte Tuyishime, a young Hutu teacher, was there with her children and her sister. Like many other people in the area, she had begun spending her days at the market or near the town hall or at the hospital in order to avoid being caught alone at home when RPF security forces carried out raids. “It was genocide,” she said. “They were not attacking Tutsis. They were killing unarmed Hutus.”
That morning she and her family ran to a neighbour’s home. They found others already sheltering there, including frightened Tutsi children. They all hid under several beds for hours until security forces came, in search of several Tutsis they’d heard were hiding there. The woman who owned the house said that, indeed, she had some Tutsi children with her, but that no insurgents were present in the house. The soldiers ordered them all to go back to the market.
When Brigitte and her children got there, they found the market littered with corpses and surrounded by armoured vehicles. She saw business people, peasants and teachers she recognized lying in pools of blood. Tutsi residents were escorted away in military vehicles, apparently being taken to safe areas in Gisenyi town. She and her children were allowed to leave. They hurried home, trembling.