Immaculée Ilibagiza

Biography

Immaculée Ilibagiza was born in 1972 in Mataba, Kibuye Prefecture, Rwanda, into a Catholic Tutsi family. She was a university student in April 1994 when the genocide began. Her father, sensing the coming danger, sent her to hide with a local Hutu pastor named Pastor Murinzi. For 91 days, Immaculée and seven other women hid in a bathroom measuring 3 feet by 4 feet — so small they could not all sit at once. They survived on whatever small amounts of food the pastor could slip to them, listening as Interahamwe searchers ransacked the house inches away from their hiding place. During those 91 days, her father, mother, and two brothers were killed. When the RPF liberated her area, Immaculée emerged having lost most of her family and reduced to 65 pounds. She later forgave the man who had led the killers to her family — a confrontation she describes as the most difficult and necessary act of her life. She immigrated to the United States, worked at the United Nations, and in 2006 published Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, which became an international bestseller translated into dozens of languages. She has since dedicated her life to speaking about forgiveness, faith, and genocide prevention.

Key Battles