During a Unity Club dialogue on May 22, 2026, Rwanda’s Minister of Gender and Family Promotion, Uwimana Consolée, shared her personal testimony of survival, displacement, and eventual return home thanks to the Inkotanyi (RPF fighters).
She recalled being a student at Lycée Notre-Dame de Cîteaux in Kigali when the liberation struggle began. Ethnic tensions forced students to sleep in classrooms for safety, while the school’s nuns urged them to remain calm and continue learning.
After finishing secondary school in 1991, Uwimana worked at BACAR Bank, openly wearing MRND party insignia, as her father was then a ruling party MP. She married in 1993, but tragedy struck when her father died later that year, weakening her political enthusiasm.
When the genocide began in 1994, she fled from Kabeza to Kanombe military camp, narrowly escaping gunfire. She later moved through Muhanga, Rubengera, and Rubavu before crossing into Goma, Zaire (now DRC). Life in refugee camps such as Mugunga was harsh; she survived on cassava and wild greens, even giving birth to her second child there.
Despite initially resisting repatriation due to MRND ideology, she eventually encountered RPF fighters deep in the forests of Congo. They reassured her, evacuated her by plane, and reunited her with family in Rwanda. “I thank the Inkotanyi for giving me a lift back home, not forcing me to walk as I had fled,” she said.
Back in Rwanda, she struggled with trauma, often fearing the very soldiers who had rescued her. Yet she was given opportunities to study and work, eventually rising to leadership positions. Today, she urges Rwandans to tell the truth about history and resist those who distort Rwanda’s past with falsehoods.
