Marie Béatrice Umutesi

Marie Béatrice Umutesi is a Rwandan writer, NGO worker, peace activist and refugee living in Belgium.

Born in Byumba, Rwanda in 1959 to a moderate Hutu family she studied sociology in university before going on to work in rural development. As a Hutu woman she was forced to flee to escape the Tutsi genocide of the Hutus, and she took refuge in the present day DRC surviving numerous attacks from the Rwandan Patriotic Front in 1996. By 1998, she had been forced to flee again and settled in Belgium working to restore peace and in conflict resolution between the Hutu's and Tutsis.

Her memoir of her experience as a refugee, originally written in French called, ''Fuir ou mourir au Zaire. Le vécu d'une réfugiée Rwandaise''(English title: ''Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire),'' has been translated into half a dozen languages. Umutesi was fiercely critical of the international ignorance to the plight of the Hutu's and the refugees in Africa. Her perspective as a Hutu woman, the political faction responsible for the genocide of the Tutsis in 1994 as well as the victim of the Tutsi massacre of the Hutus afterwards makes her a controversial figure in her perspective on the conflict.

In the years since then, her academic and NGO work has been dedicated to peace building between the Tutsis and Hutus and in 2006, she wrote the article ''Is Reconciliation between Hutus and Tutsis Possible?'' for the Journal of International Affairs. Provided by Wikipedia