April 11, 20245:17 PM ET
Akagera National Park in eastern Rwanda was hard hit by the violence of the country’s genocide. For a time, the park floundered — but it’s now flourishing.
April 11, 20241:36 PM ET
Atlantic journalist Stephanie McCrummen says foreign interests are acquiring territory in Northern Tanzania, effectively displacing indigenous cattle-herders from their traditional grazing lands.
April 11, 20248:54 AM ET
Enlarge this imageA worker separates bags of donated blood at a campaign organized by the Rotary Blood Bank in New Delhi, India.
Money Sharma/AFP via Getty Images
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A worker separates bags of donated blood at a campaign organized by the Rotary Blood Bank in New Delhi, India.
Money Sharma/AFP via Getty Images
When Caroline Wangamati was touring a rural Kenyan hospital in 2018, the doctors shared that two young mothers would likely be dead within hours.
Their hemoglobin levels were catastrophically low — a sign of life-threatening anemia. The typical response would be a blood transfusion, but the local blood bank was empty.
So Wangamati, the first lady of Bungoma County at the time, frantically called the regional blood center — 85 miles away — to have them send some units.
The delivery arrived a few hours later. “I was very proud of myself,” Wangamati tells NPR. “After t..
April 11, 20245:03 AM ET
Enlarge this imageMany members of Rachel Mukantabana’s family were killed in the 1994 genocide.
Jacques Nkinzingabo for NPR
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Jacques Nkinzingabo for NPR
Many members of Rachel Mukantabana’s family were killed in the 1994 genocide.
Jacques Nkinzingabo for NPR
NYAMATA, Rwanda — Rachel Mukantabana was a teenager when the devastating genocide in Rwanda unfolded.
“I was 15 years old and I knew exactly what was happening,” she told NPR. “Even a five-year-old knew what was about to happen.”
Two days into the 100-day genocide, Mukantabana and her family fled their homes. They first went to a church, and then a school, before ultimately hiding in a large swamp — hoping that no one would be able to reach them in the water.
This week, Rwanda marks the 30th anniversary of the genocide in which nearly one million people, most of them ethnic Tutsis, were killed.
Africa Bill Clinton and other leaders join Rwandans in marki..
April 10, 20246:36 PM ET
Paul Rusesabagina, whose life inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda, and his daughter, Anaise Kanimba, have been vocal critics of Rwanda’s current president, Paul Kagame.
April 10, 20245:55 PM ET
Basketball is gaining popularity in Rwanda. We chat with a few players and fans to learn why.
April 9, 20244:40 PM ET
Three Rwandans under the age of 25 — Ornella Ineza, Kelvin Rwihimba, and Crispin Iradukunda — reflect on what it’s like to grow up in a country that’s been shaped by a genocide.
April 9, 20244:32 PM ET
Enlarge this imageDidas Kayinamura (left) and Rachel Mukantabana (right) talk about the legacy of the Rwandan genocide thirty years later.
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Didas Kayinamura (left) and Rachel Mukantabana (right) talk about the legacy of the Rwandan genocide thirty years later.
Jacques Nkinzingabo/NPR
Many of us don’t have the opportunity to handpick our neighbors. We buy or rent a place in a neighborhood with good schools or an easy commute.
Some of us become friends with those who live nearby, others of us never talk to our neighbors at all. For most though, we co-exist.
In the midst of a brutal civil war, neighbors killed their neighbors simply because of who they were.
Thirty years ago this month, that wasn’t the case in Rwanda.
We visit a Rwandan village where how neighbors live alongside one another is deliberate, and complicated.
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April 9, 20245:00 AM ET
Enlarge this imageA shattered father recounts his kidnapping and the struggle to negotiate with the kidnappers for the release of his children.
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Terna Iwar for NPR
A shattered father recounts his kidnapping and the struggle to negotiate with the kidnappers for the release of his children.
Terna Iwar for NPR
BWARI, Nigeria — “They pointed their guns through the window of the children’s room while they were sleeping,” says the 49-year-old father of four sons, describing the beginning of a three-month ordeal that has overwhelmed his family. “Then they told them to open the door or they will shoot them.”
In early January, around midnight, 20 men armed with AK-47s and machetes attacked his home in Bwari, a small town surrounded by outcrops of towering granite rocks and forest, on the hilly outskirts of Nigeria’s capital Abuja.
The attackers dragged him and his four sons, ranging in age from 12 to 24 y..
April 8, 20244:40 PM ET
It’s been 30 years since the Rwandan genocide began in 1994. In some places today, survivors of the genocide live side-by-side with perpetrators, so-called reconciliation villages.