From the magazine

The danger of becoming a ‘professional survivor’

Though extraordinarily lucky to have escaped massacre in Rwanda in 1994, all Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse now seems to focus on is finding photographic evidence of her rescue

Michela Wrong
Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse.  Getty Images
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 22 March 2025
issue 22 March 2025
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  • The Convoy

    Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse, translated by Ruth Diver

    Open Borders, pp. 288, £18

It was a relatively minor episode in a period marked by the killing of two African presidents, months of massacres in churches, schools and sports stadiums, a biblical exodus by much of the Hutu population, a cholera outbreak in refugee camps established in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and a rebel takeover of the country.

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