Through AIDS Disease Genocide Continues in Rawanda

HIV is the most recent time bomb to hit women survivors such as Mbezuanda. In a recent report, Amnesty International stated that at least 250,000 women were raped during the genocide, and that 70 percent of the female survivors are estimated to have been infected with HIV . Some believe those numbers are an underestimate. "We are sure that 90 percent of Tutsi women were raped," said Marie Immaculee Ingabire, a spokesperson for the women's organization Pro Femmes Twese Hamwe. "We are sure that [the women] have not all told," she noted, citing the immense stigma around rape in conservative Rwanda. But now, Ingabire added, testing positive for HIV is spurring some women to talk about their experiences.  African Rights recently published a report focusing on 201 women survivors in Rwanda and Bujumbura, Burundi. All had been raped, and many were HIV positive. Others did not want to get tested because they felt their situation was hopeless anyway. "A lot of them see themselves as dead already," Onyango explained. "It's sort of a prolonged genocide. I don't know which is worse, dying immediately or dying over 10 years." Many Rwandan activists are furious that the genocide suspects awaiting trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), in Arusha, Tanzania, are receiving anti-retrovirals (ARVs) and good medical treatment. Pro Femmes and the London-based Survivors Fund are currently trying to persuade the ICTR and the United Nations to provide ARVs to women survivors so that they can stay alive long enough to testify. [more ]