Support for a widow hit by another tragedy

All that has been threatened, however, by a car crash that broke her shoulder, cut her leg and killed her sister-in-law, her only relative to survive the genocide.

Now she sits at home, in bandages, waiting for the healing process to take its course and hoping to return to work.

"I am the only person now. After those in my family had died, I didn't know about my life. I was crazy. I was crazy and I didn't know whether I had somewhere to stay.

"After getting my house I spent most of my time in bed. My life was meaningless."

Although her family is gone, Collette, 47, is not entirely alone now.

She lives in a community of 35 homes for genocide widows an hour from Kigali, paid for by Avega East. She and her fellow survivors

were "picked up from nowhere" by the charity, she said. Collette, who was left with disabling leg problems after all the days she spent cramped in a tiny hiding place under a bed during the genocide, was given counselling and a loan to start a business selling rice, potatoes and other food in the local market.

"They brought us together. They lifted us up. Avega kept on coming to me. It kept on helping me with things relating to treatment and care, as well as eating and drinking and clothing. It became my family. I was blind but now my eyes are open."