There was a thin mist in the early morning air when we set off for the Rwandan capital, Kigali on April 11, 1994. The genocide had begun four days earlier.
There were no flights into the country so I and three fellow journalists crossed into Rwanda from neighboring Burundi, hitching a ride with a French priest who was shuttling Tutsi nuns out of the country. He took us to the town of Butare where a Belgian inn keeper rented us an old cream-colored Renault and drew us map of how to get to the capital Kigali.
We drove north, winding our way through Rwanda's soaring hills and deep lush valleys. Our progress was soon slowed to a crawl by thousands and thousands of terrified Rwandans, fleeing — in almost complete silence — in the opposite direction, away from Kigali.
i i