20 YEARS AFTER GENOCIDE, VICTIM, ATTACKER NOW FRIENDS.

INSPIRATIONAL...... 20 YEARS AFTER             GENOCIDE, VICTIM, ATTACKER NOW FRIENDS...

RWANDA :today, the country marks the 20th anniversary of the start of its bloody genocide in which over 1 million were killed.....

 nyamata, april 11 :He lost her baby daughter and her right hand to a manic killing spree. He  wielded the machete that took both.

Yet today ,despite coming from opposite sides of an unspeakable shared post, Alice Mukarurinda and Emmanuel Ndayisaba are friends. she is the treasurer and he the vice president of a group that build simple brick houses for genocide survivors.

Their story of ethenic violence, extreme guilt and , to some degree, reconciliation is the story of Rwanda today, 20 years after its hutu majority killed more than 1 million tutsis and moderate hutus.

"Whenever i i look at my arm I remember what happened ,"said Alice . As she speaks, Emmanuel - the man who killed her baby - sits close enough that his left hand and her right hand stumps sometimes touch.

On Monday april 6, Rwanda marks the 20th anniversary of the beginning of 100 days of bloody mayhem.

For Alice, a Tutsi,the genocide began in 1992. hutu community leaders began importing machetes. houses were burned, cars taken, on April 6, 1994, when a plane carrying Rwanda's president was shot down, Hutus started killing Tutsis  who ran for their lives and flooded Alice's village.

Three days later, local Hutu leaders took Emmanuel ,then 23, to a Tutsi home and ordered him to use a machete. Emmanuel had never killed before. But inside his house he murdered 14 people.

During one killing spree, Alice, who was in hiding, was found by Hutus including Emmanuel. he rained down machete blows on Alice's right arm, severing it just above the wrist. He sliced her face. She was bloodied, scarred, and missing a hand...

After the genocide, Emmanuel gnawed by guilt, began asking family members of his victim for forgiveness. He joined a group of genocide killers and survivors.

it was there he saw Alice. At first he avoided her. Eventually he kneeled before her and asked forgiveness. After two weeks of thought and discussions, she said yes.

  "We had attended workshops and training and our heart kind of free, and i found it easy to forgive." she says."the bible says you should forgive any you will also be forgiven"

"I've been asking myself why i acted like a fool, listening to such words, that this person is bad and that person is bad," Emmanuel says . 

"the same people that encouraged the genocide are the ones saying there was no genocide."