Ambroise Ghurensi

Ambroise was born in Uganda, but both of his parents were Rwandan. Like many other Tutsis of their generation, they fled to Uganda for safety during the tumultuous transition from Belgian to Hutu rule in the early 1960s. Ambroise was born into exile.

In 1987, Ambroise's father responded to President Habyarimana's Hutu-dominated government, request for educated members of the Tutsi diaspora to return to Rwanda. Unlike many of his peers, Ambroise's father did not fall victim to the targeted killings of returning Tutsis. As a successful commercial businessman, he was able to locate a job in Bugesera, in southern Rwanda. The family prospered and Ambroise's two sisters were born, Suzana Uwumugisha in 1987 and Agath Namala in 1989. However, in 1992, conflict between the Hutu-dominated government forces and the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front army led to an escalation of ethnic tension throughout the country.

As an eight year old child, Ambroise was robbed of his parents. "My father was denounced, and put into the Ruhengeri prison, where they killed him." Some months later, as the family was trying to survive on the meager earnings his mother was able to provide, Ambroise and his sisters suffered a second blow. "One day my mother did not come home from work. We became worried and I went out to look for her. I ran across a friend of my mother's, and asked him where she was. He looked frightened, and told me that he had been attacked coming home from work with my mother and some other friends, and that my mother was dead. I do not know how she died, and I do not know who killed her, but she was dead." Ambroise and his two little sisters were sent to live with their grandmother, but given her own meager savings, they soon found themselves residing in the orphanage, le Centre Scolaire de Nyamata. When they arrived at the Center, there were already some hundreds of orphans and displaced families. There was little space to sleep, irregular food shipments, and unreliable water quality. Very soon after they arrived, the center's water source was compromised and an epidemic of diarrhea broke out. "Everybody fell sick because of the water. I fell sick. My sisters fell sick. Many of the old people and the young people died. One of them was my grandmother."

A bout with malaria brought Ambroise to the brink of death, but a visiting priest saved his life. On a visit to the Centre Scolaire, Father Josef Minghetti discovered Ambroise deadly ill, and brought him and his two sisters to his own orphanage. Minghetti slowly nursed Ambroise back to health. In 1994, when the Interahamwe [Hutu paramilitaries] came to kill the Tutsi children, Minghetti paid them to leave. But in early April, as the situation deteriorated. Father Minghetti fled, leaving behind the children and some Rwandan nuns, along with a significant sum of money intended to protect the children should the Interahamwe return. After the priest left, the Interahamwe targeted the orphanage. The funds Minghetti had left rapidly dwindled as the group had to buy their lives again and again. Ambroise vividly recalls one occasion, when the savings of the orphanage were nearly exhausted and barely sufficient to meet the soldiers' demands: "There was one soldier, whom we all called Satan - his physique was terrifying. We were all frightened by him. He was even constantly saying that he was the son of Satan, and one day he came, and he said I am going to kill you all today. There was not enough money to pay him off, and so all the adults in the orphanage got down on their knees and they were crying, 'You must pardon the children. They do not know what is going on. Please. Pardon the children.' Then he relented, and one of the sisters gave him the rest of our money, and she also had to give him a cow. The sister said, 'Take this cow but leave the children.'"

Miraculously, Ambroise and his two sisters, as well as the other children of the Minghetti orphanage, survived until the RPF captured the area. After the war, Ambroise (then ten years old) and his sisters were transferred to another orphanage in Bugesera, where he spent the next four years (along with a couple other of our university students). Tragically, none of Ambroise's family survived the genocide. His many aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins were either killed or reported missing. He does not know if any survived, but no one came looking for the three children.

"We are the young and we are many, and we believe we can change Rwanda. When I finish my studies, I will get a job, and I will come back to the Centre Mémorial de Gisimba and I will help all the children who are still here."

Fortunately, Save The Children was able to locate the godmother of one of Ambroise's sisters in Kampala, Uganda. "They found a friend of my father's in Kampala. She came to the orphanage in Bugesera and she agreed to take my sister. My other sister asked to go with them, and they agreed to take her back to Uganda with them. But the friend of my father, he said that as I was a boy and I had a place in the orphanage, I could live here and continue my studies. Because I was strong enough to be on my own." In 1998, the government closed the orphanage in Bugesera, and Ambroise was transferred to the Centre Mémorial de Gisimba in Kigali.

Despite spending the last decade being shuttled between orphanages, Ambroise managed to complete his secondary and high school studies with success and was admitted to college last year at the Université Libre de Kigali (Free University of Kigali). He is now 21, and is majoring in economics and management. He hopes to eventually pursue a doctorate in economics and to use his education to help children who have struggled like himself. When he has a little free time he likes to spend time with the younger children in the orphanage, or to play soccer with his friends.

Despite the challenges he has overcome, he is optimistic about the future. "We are the young and we are many," said Ambroise, "and we believe we can change Rwanda. When I finish my studies, I will get a job, and I will come back to the Centre Mémorial de Gisimba and I will help all the children who are still here. They need my help. But for now we need help."