Leah Chishugi

Leah Chishugi shares her harrowing and deeply courageous story of surviving the Rwandan genocide. Now finally settled in the UK, where she was granted asylum and has become a nurse, Leah has documented her experiences in her recent book A Long Way From Paradise. The founder of the charitable non-governmental organisation, Everything is a Benefit, is joined in conversation by respected SBS journalist Anton Enus.

Leah’s background straddles the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Both countries have been deeply affected by conflict – particularly the eastern DRC, where conflict continues to this day. Since her repatriation to the UK, Chishugi has focussed her considerable energies on the eastern DRC. She revisited the area in 2008 to document the continuing effects of the genocide in that region, where sexual violence against women remains an instrument of war.

Chishugi and Enus – who, it turns out, very nearly crossed paths with her as a teen in South Africa – discuss the horrors of ethnic conflict, its broader regional fallout, the role of foreign agents in aiding combatants, and the factors motivating her to dedicate her life to helping others.