There was a lot of threat. We pulled up on the side of the road one time because there were thousands of people running off a hill and across the road – like a stampede. They were doing a camp clearance, which often included shooting wildly in all directions to disperse the refugees out of the camps.
Brigadier Mick Burgess was a young Australian Army officer when he was deployed to Rwanda. His experience under the United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR) includes encountering child soldiers and the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide.
Mick was interviewed in 2022 by Dr Sharon Mascall-Dare for the Life on the Line podcast.
Listen to his experience in Rwanda here.
Learn more about Australia’s peacekeeping contributions in Rwanda here.
