In 1994, the genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis of Rwanda did not spare the most intimate relationships. In some « mixed » families, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, husbands, even fathers and mothers, attacked their relatives. Such is the case of Béata Nyirankoko and Patricie Mukamana. After several weeks of massacres throughout the country, these two Hutu peasant women resigned themselves to killing the children they had had with their Tutsi husbands.
Based on interviews, judicial archives and observations, this investigation gives voice to the two mothers and to various family members, both accused and survivors. Questioning the role of women and gender relations in the killings, it reveals some of the essential workings of the reversal of emotional and social ties at work during a genocide ordered by the state, but massively executed by the population.
