Shake Hands With the Devil

It was terrifying and surreal to be talking to someone, sometimes someone you knew, listening to them pleading for help, and being able to do nothing but reassure them that help was on the way—and then to hear screams, shots and the silence of a dead line. You’d hang up in shock, then the phone would ring again and the whole sequence would be repeated.

Every day I was in theatre she and so many other wives and children of UNAMIR soldiers would live on a knife-edge, waiting for a phone call or a visit that would tell them their loved one was dead or injured. In this era of live twenty-four-hour broadcasting from war zones, our families had to live the missions with us—a new phenomenon that haunted them and haunted us.