Machetes No Match for 79-Year-Old Mama Zula
By Susan Macaulay
When the genocide in Rwanda began in 1994, Mama Zula was a 79-year-old
grandmother who, up until then, had led a relatively unremarkable life.
By the end of the nation-wide massacre, she was a hero
From a Friday sometime in April 1994, Mama Zula began sheltering friends and neighbours in her home in Gitarama, Rwanda’s second largest city.
She kept 100 people hidden for 67 days, despite repeated threats from machete-wielding militia members who swore they would kill her if she didn’t open the doors to her home.
When the genocide in Rwanda began in 1994, Mama Zula was a 79-year-old
grandmother who, up until then, had led a relatively unremarkable life.By the end of the nation-wide massacre, she was a hero
From a Friday sometime in April 1994, Mama Zula began sheltering friends and neighbours in her home in Gitarama, Rwanda’s second largest city.
She kept 100 people hidden for 67 days, despite repeated threats from machete-wielding militia members who swore they would kill her if she didn’t open the doors to her home.
Mama Defied Militia
From a Friday sometime in April 1994, Mama Zula began sheltering
friends and neighbours in her home in Gitarama, Rwanda’s second largest
city.She kept 100 people hidden for 67 days, despite repeated threats from machete-wielding militia members who swore they would kill her if she didn’t open the doors to her home.
It all started when neighbours (by two accounts a young boy trying to save his mother, and a man whose house was burning), came to her in desperation asking for help. She hid them in her house.
Word spread that she was giving people safe haven, and others, including two mayors, came to her seeking refuge. Members of the militia soon followed, hoping to root out those who were hiding and kill them.
Courage & Cunning
But Mama Zula kept the refugees under lock and key, and the militia at bay with her courage and cunning.She cooked and cared for those she hid, surreptitiously feeding the children among them cough syrup in their food, to keep them from making noise and revealing themselves.
She convinced the militiamen she was a witch with secret powers, answering their threats with threats of her own, saying she would curse them if they hurt her or burned down her house.
She used the strongest locks she could find and carried the keys with her wherever she went. Had she relented and opened the doors, those under her protection would have most certainly died.
When her house was filled to overflowing, she began using a second one, and even hid people under the chaff in the fields.
They Needed Help
Although she herself wasn’t Tutsi, most of those she saved were. She told the soldiers:“Don’t you see you are brothers? You played the game kubuguza together. Do your research. We all are the same, we all have the same ancestors, we have the same blood.”
On July 14, 2006, at the age of 91, Mama Zula was awarded a medal by Rwandan Paul President Kagame for her service to humanity and her acts of courage during the Rwandan genocide in which more than 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered.
What drove Mama Zula to risk her life for people she didn’t even know?
“They came to me,” she says. “They needed help.”