Resistance Fighters

All around Rwanda there were people who tried to defend themselves; most notably at Bisesero, where tens of thousands took to the mountains. There they fought back with sticks, stones, arrows and spears against guns and artillery.

Fewer than a thousand of those who resisted at Bisesero survived, among them the men pictured here. “We had only one choice – to die fighting or give up. We chose to fight back,” says Innocent Gisanura (top row, fourth from left), who lost his father, uncle and older brother at Bisesero.