The NCAA News - News and Features

The NCAA News -- August 30, 1999

End Zone
Abilene Christian runner chased by memories of massacre

BY KAY HAWES
STAFF WRITER

Gilbert Tuhabonye, a senior distance runner at Abilene Christian University, already has run the hardest race of his life -- barely escaping a massacre that claimed the lives of 250 of his high-school classmates and teachers.

Tuhabonye is a native of Burundi, a central African country that borders Rwanda, and where more than 200,000 people have been killed in an ongoing war between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes.

A Tutsi, he grew up running the five miles to and from school each day, and by his junior year in high school he was a three-time national champion in both the 400- and 800-meter races.

Then Burundi voters elected Melchior Ndadaye, the nation's first democratically elected president as well as the first Hutu to hold the office. Ndadaye was assassinated shortly after his election in a coup led by Tutsi tribesmen who also tortured and murdered several members of his cabinet.

The Hutus in the village of Kibimba vowed revenge, and their first target was the local Christian high school where Tuhabonye sat in biology class, unaware of the assassination. A teacher, who had just barely escaped a savage beating, came running into the school warning of the advancing mob. Before anyone could escape, a mob bearing machetes and sticks surrounded the school. The mob took control of the school, gathered the teachers, students and staff and stripped them all naked. The captors recognized Tuhabonye and paid special attention to him to prevent him from escaping.

The captives were then beaten savagely and doused with fuel, and the wooden school was set on fire. Burning from the roof down, the school took hours to burn completely. Tuhabonye hugged the floor and hid under furniture, trying to shield his body until the flames died down. The mob sat outside to kill anyone bold enough to run from the fire and smoke.

After watching most of his classmates and teachers die -- either from the flames, smoke or terrible beatings -- Tuhabonye decided to try an escape. Using a charred bone of a corpse caught in the flames, Tuhabonye broke a window and jumped through it feet first, running as soon as he landed.

The mob didn't see him at first, giving him a 10-meter head start. "I heard this voice in my heart and it said I would be all right," Tuhabonye said. "Now I know it was the power of God that allowed me to get away and live. They tried to cut me with their machetes, but I was able to get away."

When they did see him, the mob didn't pursue him, and he heard someone say, "He's going to die."

He soon realized why they were so certain -- his back was on fire. He rolled into a ditch in an attempt to put out the flames. Naked and badly burned on his back, legs and arm, he slowly dragged himself to a deserted hospital where he was found by soldiers who took him to medical care.

After three months in the hospital, Tuhabonye began running again, very slowly. He hasn't stopped since. He won the 800 meters at the 1999 NCAA Division II indoor meet in Indianapolis, and he is consistently among those vying for the top places in medium- and long-distance races.

This summer he was honored as the male recipient of the 1999 National Student-Athlete Day Giant Steps Award as selected by the National Consortium for Academics and Sports.

"We don't know what a bad day is," said Tuhabonye's coach, Jon Murray. "He does, and he's still having a good day."

One day Tuhabonye hopes to return to Burundi, which he has not visited since the massacre. A forgiving person, Tuhabonye plans to one day return and teach others to forgive, a lesson that could have saved the lives of all those he saw die.