Part 3/12:
The speakers share a deeply personal story intertwined with Rwanda’s tragic history. Their adoptive father, Paul Rusesabagina, famously depicted in the film Hotel Rwanda, risked his life sheltering over 1,200 victims during the 1994 genocide. Yet, the narrative of the genocide’s ethnic roots is complex; colonial divisions artificially created ethnic identities, favoring Tutsis during Belgian rule, which fueled tensions that exploded into violence. The genocide, in which approximately one million lives were lost over three months—many gruesomely murdered with machetes—was driven by political power struggles and manipulation, rather than long-standing ethnic enmity.