The power of love

The smell of the blood never leaves Frida Umuhoza. Sometimes it’s so vivid she can almost taste it. And the coldness of the muddy grave where she was buried alive is seeped deeply into the marrow of her bones.

“I will never forget my little brother’s screams,” she says softly.

Frida Umuhoza is tucked away in a quiet corner of a busy Melbourne cafe. It’s the day before school returns and the coffee shop is buzzing with harried parents taking a break from the last-minute to-do list. None could imagine the horrors the graceful woman sipping chai latte beside them has endured.

“I have invisible scars,” she says. “If you met me today, you’d never know I survived genocide.”

Frida Umuhoza shouldn’t be here. Twenty five years ago, she lost her entire family during the genocide against the Tutsi people, her people, in Rwanda.

Then 14 years old, Frida was chosen to die. She was lined up on the edge of a muddy ditch and clubbed until her lifeless body fell into a mass grave alongside the mutilated bodies of her mother and 15 relatives.

However, Frida wasn’t dead. She regained consciousness and after hours of lying silent and still, too scared to move a muscle in case her killers returned, she was