By Sheriff Bojang Jnr.
RWN - April 15 - Cpt. Diagne’s final words to his wife: ‘We are completing our mission in 12 days and I’ll come home. Tell everybody at home to pray for me’.
Similar name
Two days later on the fateful day of May 31, Yacine was at home when a relative informed her that RFI had announced the death of a UN soldier with a similar name as her husband. When she tuned in to listen, she was confused as the radio broadcaster announced the family name of the dead soldier as Ndiaye instead of Diagne, even though the rank and first name were right and it was clear the soldier was a Senegalese UN peacekeeper in Rwanda.
As Yacine was preparing to go to the military headquarters in Dakar to find out if it was her husband, her brother-in-law arrived at her house and confirmed the news.
‘I broke down in tears and I remember repeatedly saying no it couldn’t be my husband’, she says.
Saving hundreds of lives
Cpt. Diagne was one of the hundreds of officers who served in the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) during the 1994 genocide.
His mandate as a military observer was just to observe the horrific events but he defied orders to just stand and do nothing. With determination and mostly risks, he smuggled hundreds of Rwandan civilians from danger zones into UN-protected hotels without the knowledge of his bosses. He sometime bribed armed militias at checkpoints with money and cigarette to pass through with smuggled citizens.
Mark Doyle, BBC’s correspondent in Rwanda during the genocide is one of the witnesses of Cpt. Diagne’s heroism and he helped in spreading the captain’s rescue mission to the world.
In an interview with Frontline TV for a documentary, ‘Ghosts of Rwanda’, he says of Cpt. Diagne, ‘He saved quite a lot of people by driving through the front line, hiding people in his car, driving back through the front line and so on. … You could see he was never hanging around the car park like some of the UN officers.’
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| Cpt. Diagne's widow, Yacine |
Cpt. Diagne was also credited for saving the two children of moderate Rwandan Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingijimana when she was murdered at her residence by Tutsi forces. He hid them in a closet and then in his car to safety.
End of the road
After a busy day on May 31, 1994 Cpt. Diagne was sitting in his vehicle in Kigali when a mortar shell hit him in the back of his head, killing him instantly.
His UN colleagues held a ceremony in his honour in Kigali before his body was flown to Senegal for burial.
On April 6, US State Department honoured Cpt. Diagne for his courage and heroism in Rwanda. But in Senegal, the captain seems to be long forgotten. His friends complain of the fact that nothing has been done by the state to keep his image and memory.
Believer
Cpt. Diagne’s widow, Yacine has been taking care of their two children on her own, with no support from the state or any other institution.
‘I am a believer in God. My husband died saving people he was not even related to and this legacy will stay with us, his family.’
Mark Doyle complains: "Can you imagine the media coverage a dead British or American peacekeeper of Mbaye's bravery and stature would have received? He got almost none."
And for Cpt. Diagne’s children, he will always be remembered for his ‘big smile, tenderness and generosity.’
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