Frida: Chosen to die, Destined to live

In a night of horror, after weeks of fear, Frida’s family was slaughtered. With her family at the time of terror, Frida somehow survived, in spite of vicious injuries. Left alone, with horrific memories of the massacres which occurred in Rwanda in the 1994 persecutions, Frida not only survived but became a strong advocate for healing her troubled nation.

The details in this story, tragically, are very real. They explore the gradual deterioration of village friendships and neighbourhood networks at the time of racial conflict present in Rwanda in 1994. Told from the perspective of one who was there as a child, the story shows how invasive, manufactured, cultural differences can corrupt a society.

‘Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days. Most of the dead were Tutsis – and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus.’ BBC report, Rwanda: How the genocide happened, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1288230.stm

 

Frida witnessed the massacre of her whole family, and somehow, miraculously survived herself. This is her story – one of numbness, anger, then determination. Why she survived and what she achieved as a result fill the pages of ‘Frida’ – a book that hard to read but worth the struggle to understand.