RNLI 'My Coast' competition
Beware of the sea: Ferocious waves crash onto rocks at Sennen Cove. (Jack Lancaster)
The sky turns blood-red during a dramatic sunrise in Dunstanburgh, Northumberland. (Donald McClymont)
The first, bloody days of the genocide felt like pandemonium.
There was hot lead flying in all directions and bodies lying, sometimes piled up, on the sides of the roads.
The terrifying roadblocks were mainly manned by the Hutu Interahamwe militia. The word means “those who work together”- and the work was killing Tutsis with machetes, knives and sticks. I saw one man attack another in the head with a screwdriver.
Radio stations urged them on, calling for the death of Tutsi “cockroaches”.
The shooting down of the president’s plane had rekindled a civil war between the government army and rebel forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) which had been briefly on hold following a tentative peace deal. Led by the Tutsi Paul Kagame, the RPF was advancing on the capital, saying it would stop the massacre.
In between the two sides was the beleaguered UN force. Its vehicles were sometimes attacked by Hutus - especially if the militia thought there were Tutsis inside them.
Within the first 48 hours, a lot of the unarmed military observers like Mbaye - especially those outside the capital - disappeared. “It took us nearly a month to find some who had gone to different countries,” says Dallaire. “Some ended up in Nairobi before we knew where they were.”
With virtually no-one to defend them, tens of thousands of Tutsis sought refuge in churches, but even here they were not safe. One of them, Concilie Mukamwezi, went with her husband and children to the Sainte Famille church, a large religious compound in the centre of Kigali. She remembers her time there with digital clarity.
“I had just bought some laundry soap from a stall when a priest in military uniform came up to me,” she says.
“He had four militiamen with him and he was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and grenades.
“This priest accused me of being a collaborator with the rebels.
He pointed his Kalashnikov at me like this,” she says, picking up a stick from the ground and holding it up like a rifle, “and he said he was going to fire.”
Incredible though it may seem, some Hutu clergy were collaborating in the genocide, and some were even taking part.
One of Mbaye’s jobs was to be the eyes and ears of the UN mission, and he made it his business to check occasionally on the people sheltering at Sainte Famille.
He knew Concilie by sight because before the genocide she had worked at the office of the national telephone company, Rwandatel, where he paid his phone bills. And by coincidence he happened to walk into the church compound at her moment of need.
“Captain Mbaye ran over and stood right between the priest and I,” says Concilie. “He shouted, ‘Why are you killing this woman? You must not do this because if you do the whole world will know.’” The priest backed down.
There was no large-scale killing inside the Sainte Famille compound, partly as a result of the efforts of Mbaye and the other UN peacekeepers - although plenty took place just outside.
In many churches where people had taken sanctuary, soldiers and militiamen broke in and massacred them in the pews.
There was hot lead flying in all directions and bodies lying, sometimes piled up, on the sides of the roads.
The terrifying roadblocks were mainly manned by the Hutu Interahamwe militia. The word means “those who work together”- and the work was killing Tutsis with machetes, knives and sticks. I saw one man attack another in the head with a screwdriver.
Radio stations urged them on, calling for the death of Tutsi “cockroaches”.
The shooting down of the president’s plane had rekindled a civil war between the government army and rebel forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) which had been briefly on hold following a tentative peace deal. Led by the Tutsi Paul Kagame, the RPF was advancing on the capital, saying it would stop the massacre.
In between the two sides was the beleaguered UN force. Its vehicles were sometimes attacked by Hutus - especially if the militia thought there were Tutsis inside them.
Within the first 48 hours, a lot of the unarmed military observers like Mbaye - especially those outside the capital - disappeared. “It took us nearly a month to find some who had gone to different countries,” says Dallaire. “Some ended up in Nairobi before we knew where they were.”
With virtually no-one to defend them, tens of thousands of Tutsis sought refuge in churches, but even here they were not safe. One of them, Concilie Mukamwezi, went with her husband and children to the Sainte Famille church, a large religious compound in the centre of Kigali. She remembers her time there with digital clarity.
“I had just bought some laundry soap from a stall when a priest in military uniform came up to me,” she says.
“He had four militiamen with him and he was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, a pistol and grenades.
“This priest accused me of being a collaborator with the rebels.
Incredible though it may seem, some Hutu clergy were collaborating in the genocide, and some were even taking part.
One of Mbaye’s jobs was to be the eyes and ears of the UN mission, and he made it his business to check occasionally on the people sheltering at Sainte Famille.
He knew Concilie by sight because before the genocide she had worked at the office of the national telephone company, Rwandatel, where he paid his phone bills. And by coincidence he happened to walk into the church compound at her moment of need.
“Captain Mbaye ran over and stood right between the priest and I,” says Concilie. “He shouted, ‘Why are you killing this woman? You must not do this because if you do the whole world will know.’” The priest backed down.
There was no large-scale killing inside the Sainte Famille compound, partly as a result of the efforts of Mbaye and the other UN peacekeepers - although plenty took place just outside.
In many churches where people had taken sanctuary, soldiers and militiamen broke in and massacred them in the pews.