Born into a Tutsi family , she was forced to leave her home in Kigali and her parents at the age of six due to the Rwandan genocide . She sought refuge with her grandmother in the south of the country but was forced to flee again when the genocidaires targeted the family there , killing her grandmother . She escaped the country and spent several years travelling through Africa before being granted a refugee visa to the United States
Rwandan genocide
Rwandan genocide
Clemantine Wamariya