my family and i got away, but many didn't. now i'm returning to my home country to trace back my escape route when i was just 12 years old. there's no sound that fills me with so much joy as the sound of children in a classroom. as i am reunited with my family, i also want to uncover the country's journey to healing and reconciliation. this is one of the groups that carsa has, made by genocide survivors and the genocide former perpetrators. and i'll be hearing from those who had a role in the killings and their survivors. translation: to me, - he was not only a murderer, but a monster. beeps

i'm victoria uwonkunda and i'm a reporterfor the bbc. hello and welcome to newsday, here on the bbc world service with victoria uwonkunda. i was born in rwanda, but i've lived most of my life in norway and the uk. my life was turned upside down on the 7th of april 1994. as a child, it was difficult to comprehend what was happening, but i was lucky enough to have my immediate family with me. as i am planning my first ever trip back home, i am reminded of how my sisters and i felt the day we escaped kigali. daniela and nelly were in the car with me. i remember when we stopped for food after so many hours in the car, and there was literally nothing. because everything was finished. and for me, that always sticks

in my memory of that day when we were leaving kigali. her and i were in the trunk. yes, you were. i know it was a really long journey but, for me, like, it's so compressed into... ..this kind of really uncomfortable, hungry, thirsty, warm, scary emotion that ended when we arrived at our grandparents�* home in mataura. and i remember getting out of the car and dad was there. and we were somewhere that i considered home, so somewhere familiar. and so it was almost like... ..like taking in a big breath after holding it for hours. the joy of the people when they saw us. we were so tired and exhausted. i can't even remember how tired we were. we were just happy to arrive there.

i'm almost finished packing my suitcase. as you can imagine, i'm excited. but also a big part of me is anxious because, the last time i was in my birth city of kigali, it's a time of chaos or violence when we're trying to move from one place to the next. and those memories have left emotional scars. and those emotional scars have caused me severe ptsd, post—traumatic stress disorder, which is constantly with me. i'm also hoping that this trip will bring me comfort as i hear stories from my countrymen and my countrywomen as they share their own stories. their own path to forgiveness, reconciliation, to healing. i'm following the escape route i took back in 1994 from kigali to gisenyi. i'm

hom e! you know the funny thing? when we landed, the smell and obviously the humidity, which i love, the humidity, i really felt like i was in africa. it's just a different smell. but i'm apprehensive, i guess. what to expect from the stories, from my own feelings? because i'm not going to shy away from it. it is part of what we are here to do. it is part of my story. 30 years in the making. i'm finally home. as i start myjourney, i'm reminded that this is the place where, all those years ago, the plane carrying the then hutu president of rwanda, juvenal habyarimana, was shot down. a moment in time said to have been the ignition of the 1994 genocide. i vividly remember that day. it was the day before we were meant to return to school after our

easter holidays. from the second it was known the plane had been shot down, a cacophony of gunfire and bombs started. explosion, gunfire rwandans are made of three ethnic groups — the hutus, the tutsi, the twa. for hundreds of years, the hutus, tutsis and twas lived in harmony. but when the country became a belgian colony after the first world war, the government ruled through the tutsi monarchy. the balance was broken and was further intensified by the introduction of id cards displaying people's ethnicities. in 1959, the hutus overthrew the tutsi monarchy. a group of tutsi exiles formed a rebel group, the rwandan patriotic front, the rpf,

which invaded rwanda in 1990. fighting continued for three years until a peace deal was agreed. when the president's plane crashed, hutu extremists blamed the rpf and started an organised campaign of slaughter. and who lived or died was based on their ethnic identity. injust 100 days, about 800,000 people were killed. civilians and some of those involved in the genocide fled across the border into the democratic republic of congo, then known as zaire. others went to neighbouring tanzania and burundi. human rights groups say rpf fighters killed thousands of hutu civilians as they took back power. the rwandan government has said...

distant gunfire i remember being in a state of shock as i was forced to leave my home and search for safety. and as we rwandans feared for our lives, the world looked on in horror. this is the catholic church in nyamata, where hundreds of people were killed. i met with two people who were there that day. 0ne hutu, the other tutsi. they agreed to speak to me, but they didn't want to be filmed. jean—claude was a police officer at the time of the genocide.

we started the killing using firearms and grenades with civilians using machetes and other traditional weapons. the killing went on for many days. that day, claudette was one of the many seeking refuge in the church. they came slashing people, starting with the parents, the adults who were at the entrance. they kept on cutting through the people until they found me. in another doorway, they were using guns, shooting. they couldn't open the door. they struggled because there were so many dead bodies in front of that door. and i see this man. he came and stood inside the church. then he lacerated me. he was singing when he was cutting me.

he slashed me in the face and blood was running down my face. he ordered me to lie down on my stomach. he stabbed my back with a spear. i still have the scars today. claudette was 13. she escaped from the church and hid, but was soon discovered. they found her hiding in a room, saw her sitting on bed, deeply wounded and covered in blood. and then i shot her in the shoulder to finish her. we had orders not to spare anyone.

30 years on, the physical transformations across rwanda are remarkable. but what about us rwandans? how have we managed to heal, forgive and move on? and for me, part of that was coming face—to—face with what i had lost, what i'd left behind. notjust my country, but also family i hadn't hugged or laughed with, as we did all those years ago. the last time i had seen my cousin augustine was in 1994, when we fled kigali, to find safety at my grandparents�* homestead. i was 12, he was ten. i knew he had escaped, too, but this was the first time we'd met since then. translation: we were having dinner here and all of a sudden j

we heard heavy footsteps from that path behind the house, which used to be here before, behind those buildings. we heard a lot of people fleeing. and when we went out to check, we saw they were civilians passing through these small side roads, not the main road. we immediately joined them. i got separated from my parents because i fled to the drc through the countryside, while they went through gisenyi town and into goma. i left with the neighbours. i told them i didn't know where my parents had gone, so i went with them until we crossed the border through kabuhanga, while my parents fled to goma via le grande barrier, which is the main border. my parents were in goma and i was in the kabuhanga camp where, as refugees, we stayed for about two years. in those first days, life in the refugee camp

was very bad. there was a cholera outbreak because of poor hygiene and lack of proper nutrition, and people got sick. thousands of people died from it. i got it too. seeing augustin and other family after so long was emotional. he returned to rwanda, but i moved further away, first to kenya, then to norway, and eventually to the uk. i could have returned to rwanda sooner, but the time had never felt right. i had my own emotional scars to heal. and part of my healing was searching for the places that had meant so much to me growing up. my home, my school. it evoked so many memories and i'd wanted to come

in to see what it looks like, what's changed in 30 years. but unfortunately it's locked, so i can't get in. but even looking at it, just looking at the terrace where we used to sit down after school with the parents, just catching up how our day had been, knowing that you will see friends walking down the streets and they will wave and you will talk to them. and just seeing it, you know? itjust brings so many good memories. i'm just now walking into the compound of my old school. i hope you can hear the sounds in the background. there is no sound that fills me with so much joy, so much happiness, as the sound of children in a classroom or children playing. this is evoking so many good memories.

but being back at my old school also stirred other memories, too. it was here that i realised how deep—seated the divisions in my country were. for as long as i can remember, even as a kid, ethnicity has always been part of the rwandan people and our make. but it wasn't until 1990, october, when i came to school in the morning, and it was in this classroom right here that i found out that there were divisions deeper than i could ever have thought. 0ur teacher told us, if you are a tutsi, stand on one side, if you are a hutu, stand on the other side, if you are a twa, stand on the other side. most of us did not know what we were. we were asked, "go home, ask your parents. "after lunch, when you come back to school, "i want a clear answer of what you are." we did not know what that meant. we did not know what was the purpose. we were as confused as our parents when we went home and told them, but we did return with a clear answer. and suddenly, you started

looking at your classmates, yourfriend, the one you were skipping rope withjust hours ago and just thinking, "but if you are this and i'm that, "how are we friends? "how is it possible?" it was as confusing then as it continues to be — the division among a people who share our culture, tradition, language. today, rwandan children in schools like mine no longer have to discuss their ethnicity. id cards have no record of ethnic groups. but has the country gone far enough? many still argue that there is no freedom to discuss the genocide openly. but the rwandan government refutes this and says there have been huge strides in bringing people together. we were talking very openly, rwandans all over the country were talking about who they are, what they felt about this process of reconciliation,

what happened to their families, what it means to be a young rwandan who did not participate in genocide, whose... maybe the genocide was carried out in their name, but they are not associated with it at all. having to go to school with survivors — what does that mean, young people associating with each other? these are things that we've been discussing for years now. it's this reconciliation that i am most eager to understand. how can you overcome such trauma 30 years on? as i left my family home behind, i am reminded of how this route, this trip is infinitely different to the one i took 30 years ago on this same stretch. today, there are no gunshots or long lines of refugees fleeing. i am meeting with christophe mbonyingabo, who runs the christian reconciliation

project called carsa. this is one of the groups that carsa has. the groups that we have in muhanga district are made by genocide survivors and the genocide former perpetrators. it means those whom, during the genocide, they were living together, they were neighbours, and one, the perpetrator, was involved in killing the victim's family members. they meet on a regular basis. and today, this is the land of one of the genocide perpetrators. thus, they have come together as genocide survivors, victims, and the former perpetrators, and they are helping him in his land. in this group, there is evariste. he was only 24 years old when he was confronted with the harsh realities of war.

translation: we attacked i from the other side of the road and we infiltrated the crowd so that we could take them by surprise. some were taken to other places and we stayed here with others, including narcisse's mother. i was offered a cow if i accepted to kill her. and as a young man, i didn't hesitate. i killed her. the woman that evariste killed was narcisse's mother. translation: when the genocide stopped, i had lost my parents - and my siblings, and especially because evariste was the only perpetrator close to me — i mean close to me as a neighbour, not as a friend — i could see him more often than others. therefore, i thought he was the one who exterminated my family. to me, he was not only a murderer, as he said, but a monster.

evariste served 18 years in prison, but is still haunted by guilt. i told him that i wanted to ask for forgiveness and begged him to assist me in the process if i failed. so he came to my home and told me he wanted to apologise for killing my mother and provided me with first—hand information about the incident. i got stuck at some point but, because i had prepared him, he touched my hand to reassure me. we had also said a prayer before, so he assisted me all the way until i completed myjourney, and we closed the healing session with a prayer and moved on as friends. do not feel the burden any more.

i forgive you from the deep of my heart. cow moos it is actually the first time that i've come face—to—face with somebody who's admitted that they took another person's life. it was very powerful. it was all a story about how you go from that, from committing those atrocities, and the power of forgiveness, of healing, of finding it within yourself to look the man who took your mother's life away in the eye and say, "i forgive you." this is also my story. i needed to be able to forgive my country's past. i was inspired byjean—claude and claudette, who were part of the nyamata church atrocities. claudette's scars are still there, but she's moved on — not just for her sake,

but for the sake of future generations. ifelt like, if i died without forgiving him, the burden could be on my children. if i died and those hatred sentiments still lingered, we wouldn't be building the rwanda i'd want for my children. it would be the rwanda i grew up in. it is a very interesting process which allows you to become human again and reflect on one's crimes. i had to face many people and ask for forgiveness, including claudette and others. i finally was forgiven and accepted back in the society. the journey towards healing is very useful to humanity. it set you free, both the offender and the offended.

like evariste, jean—claude also was found guilty for his crimes. he was sentenced to community work. translation: children| are getting an education which is totally different from that of before the genocide. and besides, those who were bad influences before the genocide i guess are getting out of the way and leaving behind children who will grow nicely in a reconciled and unified society where people live in peace and won't have to inherit a bad legacy, which i think is fading away. so i hope our country will be a much better place in the future. as my trip was coming to an end, i was happy to take part in one of the activities i remembered from my childhood — community service we call umuganda.

one day every month, we rwandans of all ethnicities come together to help clean and build their communities. i got to see the work of reconciliation and healing that continues. there may still be a way to go, but it is happening. and that's how i feel, too. myjourney has helped me heal those wounds, the psychological wounds that left me with severe ptsd growing up because of what i went through, fleeing the horrific violence of 1994. i feel raw, but i too am reconciling with my home. and like many rwandans, i can see glimpses of hope, of strength, of resilience.

hello. monday was quite a quiet day of weather, really. we had some sunny spells breaking through the cloud, for example, here in cambridgeshire. and across large parts of england, it was a warm day for april, with temperatures topping out at 19 degrees celsius at kew, in london. these temperatures are around 5 or 6 degrees above average. it's going to be a much cooler kind of day for tuesday. notjust cooler, it's going to be wet and windy for many as well. the change is down to an area of low pressure. this area of cloud you can see swirling to the southwest of the uk and that's essentially pushing northwards and eastwards over the next 12 hours. we already have quite a bit of rain with us at the moment and the rain across northern ireland and scotland could be heavy enough to cause some localised flooding. 20—40 millimetres of rain, not a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, however, edinburgh, for example, has already had over one and a half times the april average rainfall, even though we're onlyjust

over a week into the new month. so this extra rainfall could be enough to cause some localised flooding. the weather will tend to brighten up from the west as we go through the day. sunshine and showers follow our main band of rain through. it's also going to be a windy, gusty kind of day. particularly for england and wales, gusts widely running into the forties of miles now, but could reach around 50 or 60 miles an hour around some coastal areas, with the rain reluctant to clear away from eastern scotland and parts of northeast england. 0ur temperatures are about 10 to 12 degrees for most. that will clear through and we're left with some colder air as we head into the first part of wednesday. potentially chilly enough to give an odd nip of frost for the early part of wednesday morning. should be a fine start to the day with sunshine. then it clouds over with the next weather system moving in from the west, bringing more rain. now, even as the rain pushes through across wales and southwest england, it probably will stay rather cloudy. the weather that follows. however, it will start to turn a bit milder again with south—westerly winds, temperatures around 13—15 degrees.

and that warming trend continues as we head into thursday. again, we've got south—westerly winds with us, but this time after a cloudy start, the clouds should tend to thin and break up and we'll see some spells of sunshine coming through quite widely. yeah, there'll be a few showers for the north and west of scotland, but otherwise it's mostly dry. and those temperatures, 17 for aberdeen, 17 for belfast, but highs could reach around 19 or 20 across parts of eastern england. it stays pretty mild then towards wales and england as we head into the weekend. temperatures could reach the low 20s for some.

live from washington, this is bbc news. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says a date has been set for an israeli invasion of rafah, gaza's the un watchdog sticks out after drones hit a nuclear power plant in ukraine. and a total solar eclipse sweeps across parts of north america, plunging millions into brief darkness. there it is! that is spectacular! hello, i'm michelle fleury. israeli prime minister benjamin

netanyahu says a date has been set for an israeli invasion of rafah, gaza's last refuge for displaced palestinians, but did not reveal the date. mr netanyahu said invading the area is critical to reach his country's goals and releasing all hostages and destroying hamas. but as many as 1 million people are believed to be sheltering in rafah, more than half of them children. mr netanyahu faces international pressure including from the us to not invade the city without a specific plan as to how to keep civilians safe. here is us state department spokesman matthew millar responded to the prime minister. we have made clear to israel that we think a full—scale military invasion of rafah would have an enormously harmful effect on those civilians and would ultimately hurt israel's security so it is notjust a question of israel presenting a plan to us, we've made clear to them

that we think there is a better