Rwanda: Survivors of a Genocide

February 13, 2014 | Pulitzer Center

Tomaso Clavarino, for the Pulitzer Center

Nyabarongo river. Here the victims of Hutu's violence were thrown in the water. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Prisca, who lost both legs after stepping on a land mine, stands in front of the Genocide Memorial in Nzove. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Joseph, a former Tutsi soldier, in his house in Kimironko. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Beatrice lost her arms while protecting her child in Nyamata. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Jean-Bosco stepped on a land mine a couple of years after the genocide. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

The amputees often have old and uncomfortable prostheses. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Dassan lost all his family during the genocide. The Interhawme militias tried to kill him with machetes, but he survived and suffered the amputation of his forearm. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Eugenie was 7 when she lost her legs after hiding from the militias in water for five days. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Fils was 4 during the genocide. While he was escaping from his house in Nyamirambo, a group of Hutu threw a grenade at him. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Fils's prosthetic leg. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Martha was beaten on the head with machetes and sticks. Since then, she has worn a wig. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

Ngaboy sits in front of a bar near Kigali. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

New prostheses are expensive and difficult to find in the country. Image by Tomaso Clavarino. Rwanda, 2014.

In 2014, Rwanda will observe the 20th anniversary of the 1994 genocide, when more than 800,000 people were killed over the course of approximately 100 days. Since then, the country has changed a great deal, and its economy has substantial growth in the last decade. But despite the progress, the word "Rwanda" is still synonymous with genocide. The country is in the process of rebuilding from that brutal, almost unimaginable horror. There is, however, one reminder of the genocide that cannot be easily erased or ignored: the tens of thousands of amputees who survived the killing but were left permanently maimed. The amputees remain a record of the country’s horrific past. They struggle to survive, and in many cases, they are alone, without parents and on the margins of society.