Opus Prize and UN Nansen Award winner Marguerite Barankitse, known as "Maggy," witnessed the murder of over 70
people in Ruyigi, during the civil war between Hutu and Tutsi tribes in
Burundi. Maggy's responded by founding Maison Shalom (House of Peace), “I am a tutsi woman. Before the war began I already had seven adopted
children, four hutu and three tutsi. When the killing began, people were
demanding to know who was hutu and who was tutsi. But I said, you can’t
separate children, I refused to separate them. But no one would protect
us all, so we went to the Bishop’s house, thinking we would be
protected in God’s house. There were many other people already there. The tutsis came and demanded that we handed over the
hutus to them. I refused, but they beat me and tied me up and then
covered the building with fuel. I was so frightened, but I remembered I
had a little money and I offered them money to spare the children. They
did, and allowed 25 of the children to live.
The whole thing, it took from 9am to 3 in the afternoon. They only
let me go because I was tutsi. I was so frightened and distraught, but I
could not see any of the children, so I went to the chapel to pray. I
said to God, “show me how, show me how I can continue to live after
this.” Then I heard my oldest child say ‘we are here’, and they were,
all seven of them, hiding in the chapel with the other children.
I
saw then, I decided I needed to help create a new generation. It was my
absolute conviction. So I took my own seven children and the other 25
to the cemetery to try and find a safe place, I knew that if people saw
the children they would try and kill them. We were very very hungry. I
thought ‘where can we go to be safe?’ And Lysette, who was only four
said ‘ActionAid can help’. So we went to the home of a German man (who
was working for AA at the time), and that is where Maison Shalom
begins."
Maggie has raised over 10,000 orphans - a new generation - to be "inventors" of peace. As maggoe likes to say, "I know I can never stop the war, but I can stop it in my heart and in the hearts of the children."
