Red Cross In Rwanda

         After the Cold War, many ethnic conflicts remained throughout the world, especially in Africa. Rwanda was one country that suffered severe deaths from the ethnic conflicts between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Hutus just began slaughtering Tutsis causing a big upset in the world. The International Committee of the Red Cross quickly arrived in Rwanda to begin helping those in need. They worked hard to care for many Tutsis and helped reunite more than forty seven thousand children with their families.

Rwanda is a small country in central Africa. There are two ethnic groups in Rwanda. The Hutus, which is the majority, and the Tutsis, which is the minority. In 1916 Belgium made it a colony and thinking they were superior, put the Tutsis in charge. In 1962 Rwanda gained its independence and the Hutus took over. When the Hutus took power they began to exile the Tutsis. In 1990 the country fell into a civil war when the exiled Tutsis formed an army and invaded Rwanda. Gradually the violence against the Tutsis increased. In 1993 president Habyarimana signed a power-sharing agreement with the Tutsis. The UN was then sent with the mission of monitoring the peace agreement. The main trigger of the genocide was when the Rwandan, Hutu president, Juvenal Habyarimana was killed. His plane was shot down above the Kigali airport on April 6, 1994. Immediately Hutu extremists began the massacre of Tutsis, blaming them for the presidents death. Within one hundred days after that approximately eight hundred thousand people were killed.
The whole time the genocide was happening, none of the other countries bothered to help. The U.N stepped in 1995 and began charging and sentencing all the people responsible for the horrible deaths. However as soon as most of the foreign citizens were evacuated, the U.N peacekeepers withdrew from the situations, leaving people there to be murdered. They did this even though General Romeo Dalliare sent a fax to the UN asking for more troops, positive that he would be able to stop the genocide. The Red Cross didn’t do that. They found out what was going on and immediately went to start setting up camps and rescues. They could be considered some of the only outside help that cared.
Right after the genocide Hutu militias fled to Zaire with over a million refugees. There a Red Cross camp was set up where they began helping the refugees. Louise Besner, a Canadian Red Cross delegate said that there were seven thousand children that were taken away from their families and parents. About six months later she said that, while the red cross was still attempting to help the children, there were then thirty five thousand unaccompanied minors taken away from their families.  Even though so many bad things were happening in their lives, Louise said that the children were still able to smile and hope which is really an amazing thing. Louise had moved over to Goma to help more refugees and she said that by the time she had left in February 1995 she and her local staff had identified over five hundred family members of the children’s and was able to reunite about one hundred of them.
When the International Committee of the Red Cross showed up in Rwanda they not only helped cure the wounded, but they also worked extremely hard to reunify families. According to the Red Cross website, they forwarded 4 million, six hundred thirty thousand, one hundred forty five messages, reunited fifteen thousand, one hundred seventy five families, and traced twenty thousand, nine hundred fifty five people from January 1995 to June 1996. Red Cross also helped set up schools, water facilities, and food stations.
Red Cross didn’t stop there however. In 1997 many Red Cross delegates were sent to Rwanda where they set up so many different rescue and reuniting facilities. One example of a delegate is Sue Pfisterer. Sue was there to reunite children and their families but also said, “I was there to ensure political prisoners were treated humanely.” 
 "All of my Red Cross experiences have been very rewarding," said Pfisterer. "You see so much sadness and misery. But when you can make a positive impact on these people, it gives you so much satisfaction."  This shows that all the Red Cross delegates that showed up to Rwanda to help were not there just to do some volunteer job. They were there because they wanted to help.
All of the Red Cross delegates came back with miraculous experiences and stories. One delegate that had some stories that really helped show me how series everything happened to be was Bernard Barrett. One story he had was about a ten or eleven year old boy who had been separated from his family for four years. Red Cross helped find his sister and mother and took him to their home. When they got there all the child had said while standing outside on the porch was, “Mom, I’m home.”  It’s almost impossible to think about how hard that must have been for the family to be away from each other for so long and that without Red Cross they could have never scene each other again.
This horrible genocide of 1994 killed about one million people in only one hundred days. That’s ten thousand deaths everyday for one hundred days straight. Think about how far you would have to go to cover a radius of about ten thousand people. Then imagine them all massacred in just one day. Then multiply that by a hundred. That’s your whole family, your life, your hometown, your friends, and your mentors. The saddest part is that the U.N didn’t even bother to help. They got their own people out and then left. Its good that the Red Cross was there to help Rwanda because no one else cared or tried. With out the Red Cross thousands more would be dead.