Celestine

(as told by Ann-Marie, Celestine's mother, continued)

After they raped me, they called to another two boys; one of them said, “This woman is sweet, you also need to enjoy her.” After that, they said, “This Tutsi woman is not getting satisfied. Let’s get a corn stem and sharpen it to the shape of a penis; that will satisfy her.” So they went to cut that piece and they put my legs apart and then they started pounding that stem of corn into my private parts. After that night, I couldn’t walk.

When the leader of the militia saw me, he said, “These people must be killed because we killed all the others. If we leave them, they are going to report us when things don’t work out. Or they will be a bad omen.” And one of them asked, “Now, how do we kill 30 people? There are too many.” Another man offered to take us to his land where he had already dug a grave. He said, “Let us take them and kill them there. And then when they rot, they will be fertilizer for my farm. I will plant banana plantations afterward, and they’ll be fertile.”