From 'dead on the inside' to 'truly alive': Survivor of genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda recounts her story as UN marks 25th anniversary.

'Miraculously I had no machete marks' a survivor of the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda told a solemn United Nations event in New York on Friday, 25 years on, to remember the systematic killing of more than one million people, over less than three months.

'Most of the survivors we have today were broken in their bodies and their souls', Esther Mujawayo-Keiner told those gathered in the General Assembly Hall, to reflect on what UN chief Antonio Guterres referred to as 'one of the darkest chapters in recent human history', which overwhelmingly targeted Tutsi, but also moderate Hutu and others who opposed the genocide.

She recounted how the genocide took almost all of her immediate family, including her parents, most of her siblings and her husband. She thought she might be the last woman left standing, 'because it was almost impossible to survive'.

But slowly, she discovered there were other widows - a new kind of family - adding that the 'widows clan' helped her to be 'truly alive' and no longer 'dead on the inside', and together with other female survivors, she founded the widows' association AVEGA.

Beware of 'dangerous trends'

'Today we stand in solidarity with the people of Rwanda', Secretary-General Guterres told the gathering, calling on everyone present to acknowledge 'dangerous trends of rising xenophobia, racism and intolerance' at work throughout the world today.

Calling the current widespread proliferation of hate speech and incitement to violence 'an affront to our values, which threatens 'human rights, social stability and peace', he saw them as the 'dangerous trends' that were 'clearly present in Rwanda immediately before the genocide'.

'Today's commemoration gives us an opportunity to once again raise our voices against racism, xenophobia and related intolerance, including social and ethnic discrimination, anti-Muslim hatred and anti-Semitism', the UN chief asserted. 'Wherever they occur, these evils should be identified, confronted and stopped to prevent them leading, as they have in the past, to hate crimes and genocide'.

Mr. Guterres called on all political, religious and civil society leaders to

'reject hate speech and discrimination', and to root out the causes that 'undermine social cohesion and create conditions for hatred and intolerance'.

'Let us all pledge to work together to build a harmonious future for all people, everywhere' he said, calling it 'the best way to honour those who lost their lives so tragically...