The Nassau Community College Fall 2010 Cultural Program is proud to host Rose Mapendo, a Congolese genocide survivor, in the College Center Building. Mapendo — who survived 18 months in a Congo death camp under horrifying conditions with her nine children — was rescued and resettled in the United States. Named Humanitarian of the Year by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2009, Mapendo has become an international advocate for peace and reconciliation.
Living in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Mapendo and her husband had seven children when the Rwandan army invaded and war broke out in 1998. In response to the invasion, Congo's president announced that some ethnic groups inside the country were the enemy. Soldiers and civilians hunted down, beat, raped, jailed and killed fellow Congolese. The Mapendos were one of those targeted. The family tried fleeing along dangerous and uncertain escape routes, but soldiers soon arrested them. Mapendo sat helplessly in a jail cell while their captors executed her husband.
A few months into her imprisonment, Mapendo realized she was pregnant with twins. By her eighth month of captivity, while suffering from severe malnutrition, she bore premature twin boys on her concrete prison floor. Neither Mapendo nor her sons received any medical treatment. After being imprisoned for 16 months in the death camps, Mapendo and her children were rescued and flown to a refugee camp in Cameroon. Over the next six months, the twins almost died on three occasions from malnutrition-related sicknesses. The family ultimately resettled in the United States.
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Today, Mapendo is a global activist for peace and reconciliation. Her story has been chronicled in the documentary Pushing the Elephant. Mapendo is a victim no more. She is a true hero, an incredible survivor and an inspiration to us all.
