March 11, 2004
Furaha (happiness)
Furaha , her husband, and three children had come from Rwanda as refuges to live in mountain village of Osha. One night, seven Interhamwe stormed the house and carried the family outside. They took her husband and strapped him to a tree, so that he had to watch while they each, in turn, raped his wife. Furaha was already two months pregnant and the violence of the rapes broke her water. The men dragged her into the forest and kept her there, raping her every night. Eventually they abandoned her down by the river, where she was found by a counselor from the DOCS program, Gueris Mon Peuple. She was brought back to the village to find that her husband and children had survived the attacks. They welcomed her back into the family, even though the rest of her extended family rejected her. In some ways, this rejection by her loved ones was worse than the rape.
Not only did they consider the rape to be her fault, but they thought her pregnancy from the rape was shameful. She also had a severe vaginal fistula (a hole in the wall of the urethra) that could not be repaired at the local hospital. So she was brought down to DOCS, where she had her fistula operation and gave birth to her daughter. Two weeks ago, she left to go back to her family in Osha and her husband, who will accept the baby as his own.