Jerome returning to the local Kibeho church where he and his family sought refuge during the 1994 genocide. Image from documentary film ‘Why We Dance’ by Marc Ellison.

Jerome Irankunda was born on 27^th June 1988 in Nyaruguru, a district in the southern province of Rwanda. As a child of the Abenegahaya lineage of the once royal Abanyiginya clan, his family were primarily cattle farmers whose pastures spread over the Ramba and Mashetsa hills. He has fond memories of his early childhood, when he would drink fresh milk with the other children and sing songs about the cows. While he was aware of official discrimination against Tutsi from an early age, he also recalled playing freely alongside the children in his area, irrespective of their ethnicity.

On the 10^th April 1994, though, word reached his family that Tutsis’ houses were being burned, and Tutsi men and boys were being massacred. Five-year-old Jerome was told to put on a dress to protect him, and he then fled with his family to the nearby Kibeho church, which had served as a sanctuary during previous periods of political violence. Soon after, the local Hutu Power extremists laid siege to the church, and on 13^th April, Jerome fled the massacre with his uncle, leaving behind his parents and extended family, who he never saw again. Jerome and his uncle went with many other Tutsi survivors to Burundi, witnessing additional crimes of genocide en-route. They eventually settled in a refugee camp where they survived in precarious conditions for several months, before returning to Nyaruguru.

As a child survivor of the genocide, Jerome’s story speaks to the experiences of a generation of Tutsi whose lives were devastated in just over three months. Growing up as an orphan in Rwanda dedicated to the project of unitarian reconciliation, he was supported by an ‘artificial family’ of fellow genocide survivors and with scholarships to pursue higher education. Today, he is a community leader and a lecturer at the University of Tourism, Technology, and Business Studies (UTB) in Rwanda. He is married to Nina Uwera and is a proud father to two sons, both named after family members murdered during the genocide.

Nina has played a central role in Jerome’s life and in his contributions to this project. She has joined him for the interviews that are shaping the graphic novel that artist Michel Kichka is creating based on Jerome’s experiences. Nina’s grandparents had fled to Burundi as refugees in 1959, when – as Rwanda prepared for independence from its Belgian colonizers – Hutu political extremists seeking control of the new government began attacking and forcing the mostly-Tutsi monarchists out of Rwanda. Nina’s parents were born in Mushiha, Burundi, and later moved to Nyamitanga, where Nina was born in 1992. Nina’s family returned to Rwanda in 1995, one year after the genocide against the Tutsi. Nina and Jerome met in 2019 in Kigali, married in 2020, had their first son in 2021, and second son in 2023. They now live in Kigali where Nina has a small shop selling groceries.

Nina Uwera dancing with her husband Jerome. Image from documentary film ‘Why We Dance’ by Marc Ellison.

In March 2024, the University of Aberdeen kindly provided funding to allow Michel and project leads, Fransiska and Erin, to travel to Rwanda to visit commemorative sites dedicated to preserving memory and educating the public about the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. They were accompanied by Jerome, who had worked with Erin as a researcher on several previous projects. During this visit, Jerome forged a strong bond with Michel, himself a second-generation Holocaust survivor, and agreed to share his story as a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. It became apparent that Jerome was committed to sharing his story of survival through Michel’s artwork, and that, between them, they had a deeply compelling story to tell. After this visit, Jerome also introduced the team to his wife, Nina, whose story intertwines with Jerome’s narrative in significant ways. While Michel was initially interested in Nina’s story from the perspective of a ‘second generation’ survivor, it became clear during their discussions that Nina had her own story of survival to tell. Her voice has been welcomed onto the project alongside Jerome’s, providing an important dimension in its own right.

In October 2024, the team travelled from their respective homes in Rwanda, the UK, and Israel to meet in a rural retreat in Anseremme, Belgium. Over five days, Fransiska and Michel interviewed Jerome and Nina, taking turns asking questions while Michel made notes and preliminary sketches. Filmmaker Marc Ellison worked alongside them, capturing the essence of their interviews and other interactions on film. Since then, the team has maintained an online dialogue, supported by survivor liaison Sean Callaghan. With the assistance of transcription software, Jerome transcribed the interviews. During this process, he and Nina took time to consider which parts of these exchanges they were comfortable with being made public and/or archived. This process also enabled Jerome and Nina to reflect on the narrative that was taking shape to inform the graphic novel Michel was creating based on their story. Marc, meanwhile, distilled footage from the Belgium retreat and a subsequent visit to Rwanda in December 2024 into a trailer and short film that conveys the context for Jerome’s and Nina’s stories, and the process through which their stories are emerging as graphic art. As with the interviews, Jerome was able to help guide the filming in Rwanda and provide feedback on the storyboard, final trailer, and film ahead of their public release.