:00:00. > :00:00.to piece together the story of an unsung hero. An unarmed UN
:00:00. > :00:00.peacekeepers from Senator also the lives of hundreds of civilians
:00:00. > :00:14.caught up in the conflict. He was met by some of the scenes
:00:15. > :00:19.distressing. I will tell you a truly remarkable story. In the midst of
:00:20. > :00:25.one of the darkest chapters of our times the genocide in Rwanda in
:00:26. > :00:32.1994, this is the story of a man who put his own life on the line to save
:00:33. > :00:37.others time after time. He said you can't kill these people, you cannot
:00:38. > :00:43.take them out at all. I refuse that. And he opened his arms. If you want
:00:44. > :00:45.to take them you first kill me. With extraordinary courage, this
:00:46. > :00:56.peacekeeper from Senator saved many hundreds of lives. That is the sort
:00:57. > :01:00.of Victoria Cross action. I returned to Rwanda and met people scattered
:01:01. > :01:21.around the world is to tell the six ordinary story for the first time.
:01:22. > :01:28.I have wanted to tell the story for a long time. It is the story of an
:01:29. > :02:00.unsung hero, a good man in Rwanda. I am on my way back to Rwanda. What
:02:01. > :02:03.happened he was so awful, so shocking in its intensity that it
:02:04. > :02:16.has changed the way I look at the world.
:02:17. > :02:32.Our correspondent has just flown into Rwanda and centre this.
:02:33. > :02:35.Automatic fire can be heard from inside the city a few kilometres
:02:36. > :02:38.away. Several mortars exploded near the airport. Government militia have
:02:39. > :02:40.been on the streets searching for their enemies. Our correspondent
:02:41. > :02:47.reports. At least 100,000 people have been killed in the last month.
:02:48. > :02:59.The rebels are security and this walk at last a long time. `` secure
:03:00. > :03:04.here. This hotel in the capital of Rwanda
:03:05. > :03:12.is at the centre of this story. The memories of events you come back
:03:13. > :03:16.with digital clarity. I have been reconstructing what happened in
:03:17. > :03:22.Rwanda 20 years ago with the help of some of these old maps and this is
:03:23. > :03:33.my reporters notebook with some handwritten dispatches that I wrote
:03:34. > :03:40.at the time. This is Rwanda. This is Rwanda in central Africa with the
:03:41. > :03:44.capital, Kigali here. In 1994 there was a civil war between the majority
:03:45. > :03:53.ethnic Hutu in the minority ethnic Tutsi. There is a classic civil war
:03:54. > :03:58.between the two armies but also genocide war in the majority Hutu
:03:59. > :04:03.were essentially trying to wipe out the minority Tutsi. As well as
:04:04. > :04:11.anybody else who disagreed with their very hardline position. I have
:04:12. > :04:15.never forgotten this man that I met on my assignment in Rwanda 20 years
:04:16. > :04:19.ago. An unarmed military observer with a small United Nations force
:04:20. > :04:26.that was in Rwanda to monitor the ceasefire and to try and keep the
:04:27. > :04:39.peace. He is Captain Mbaye Diagne. An officer of the army of Senator.
:04:40. > :04:42.`` San Miguel. Set ago is half a continent away from Rwanda but in
:04:43. > :04:54.both countries French is one of the main languages. Captain Mbaye Diagne
:04:55. > :04:58.was a relatively junior UN officer. He would not be officially filmed by
:04:59. > :05:04.journalists like me but there are some shots taken by colleagues. He
:05:05. > :05:18.hears smoking a cigarette, smiling confident, friendly. What sort of
:05:19. > :05:24.guy was he? Tall, smooth, energetic. He had a sparkle in his eye. The
:05:25. > :05:29.Canadian military commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in
:05:30. > :05:35.1994 remembers him as a soldier who stood out from the ranks. He was an
:05:36. > :05:40.expressive type of person and that is why he stood out. He moved at
:05:41. > :05:52.least half a pace faster than everybody else. What he did was in
:05:53. > :05:55.total concert with who he was. The UN was in Rwanda to try and end the
:05:56. > :06:01.war that had been raging there for several years. Rebels, representing
:06:02. > :06:05.the ethnic Tutsi minority, had been marginalised for a generation and
:06:06. > :06:12.had invaded and held part of the country. There was now a pause in
:06:13. > :06:18.this war and an uneasy peace agreement was arranged. The UN was
:06:19. > :06:21.supposed to police it. But the atmosphere was extremely tense. The
:06:22. > :06:30.UN mission was small and lacked resources.
:06:31. > :06:38.On the night of April the 6th 1994, a catastrophic events took place. I
:06:39. > :06:56.rushed to Rwanda fought and you would be a huge story. `` for what I
:06:57. > :07:00.knew. The president of Rwanda and already has been killed. Rwandan
:07:01. > :07:06.officials say the plane was shot down. 20 as I do still unclear what
:07:07. > :07:16.site shut down the plane, the tipsy rebels or Hutu hardliners opposed to
:07:17. > :07:21.the peace deal. But it reignited the war and the downing of the plane
:07:22. > :07:24.triggered a wave of terror and killing a hardline Hutus against
:07:25. > :07:33.gypsies and anyone else who got in their way. Dreadful scenes like this
:07:34. > :07:39.were repeated right across the country. The killing had begun with
:07:40. > :07:43.the assassination of the Rwandan Prime Minister and her husband the
:07:44. > :08:00.morning after the President's plane was attacked. Her children had been
:08:01. > :08:09.bundled over the fence and hidden here.
:08:10. > :08:17.This woman is the daughter of the murdered prime minister. She was 15
:08:18. > :08:31.when her mother was killed will stop she has never spoken publicly for
:08:32. > :08:36.about Thursday 's. `` those events. The house where she and her four
:08:37. > :08:42.brothers lighting was in a residential compound UN civilian aid
:08:43. > :08:47.workers. The commander of the UN peacekeeping mission arrived at the
:08:48. > :08:54.compound to find her waiting for him. I banged on this big steel gate
:08:55. > :09:04.and it opened and what I saw in there was a UN vehicle and he is
:09:05. > :09:10.standing there, not smiling, but confident and within seconds he
:09:11. > :09:13.starts to brief me on what had happened and all of the other
:09:14. > :09:23.civilians, they were all clustered around him. He was there sense of
:09:24. > :09:28.security. Soldiers were still hunting the Prime Minister's
:09:29. > :09:35.children that surround the compound. There was no time to lose. He
:09:36. > :09:38.decided to let the kids up, hide them under a tarpaulin and drive
:09:39. > :10:01.them out. The gutsiness of that, there were no
:10:02. > :10:09.limits to try to describe how gutsy that was. That is a Victoria Cross
:10:10. > :10:10.type action. Marie Christine and her brothers made it to the relative
:10:11. > :10:43.safety of this hotel. All across Rwanda what appeared to
:10:44. > :10:49.be a meticulously planned operation of mass killing was into gear.
:10:50. > :10:54.Tootsies were the main target but moderate Hutu were killed as well.
:10:55. > :11:05.Those that could, fled for their lives. Many thought, wrongly, that
:11:06. > :11:14.churches would provide safe refuge. Thousands came here to the large
:11:15. > :11:18.compound of this church. But, incredible though it may sound, some
:11:19. > :11:29.Hutu priests had been colluding with militia men to attack Captain Mbaye
:11:30. > :11:34.Diagne. `` Tutsi. This woman had taken refuge in the church in the
:11:35. > :11:35.early days of the genocide that she will never forget the man or the
:11:36. > :11:49.place in her story. Captain Mbaye Diagne would make it
:11:50. > :11:53.his business to come to the church every now and then to check what was
:11:54. > :11:58.going on. He knew her because before the genocide began she worked for
:11:59. > :12:00.the national telephone company. He used to go to her office to pay his
:12:01. > :13:40.phone bills. While this deadly drama was
:13:41. > :13:50.unfolding, the world turned its back. Western countries and even
:13:51. > :14:04.the UN seemed to be saying in effect that Rwandan lives did not matter.
:14:05. > :14:08.There was no grand plan left. The UN in fact, three weeks into the
:14:09. > :14:13.genocide, was still arguing whether or not it was allowed to protect
:14:14. > :14:17.anybody and so they were debating it and meanwhile we were in the field
:14:18. > :14:21.when guys were saving bodies left right and centre, like Captain Mbaye
:14:22. > :14:29.Diagne, trying to get people to the airport. There were a few people
:14:30. > :14:34.with a sense of humanity, who went well beyond their orders. They went
:14:35. > :14:37.well beyond any mandate. It was, I am committed to these human beings.
:14:38. > :14:43.They will be slaughtered and they don't deserve it. Guys like him. And
:14:44. > :14:47.guys like Captain Mbaye Diagne were facing everyday guys like this, this
:14:48. > :14:53.man is one of the killers and has man is one of the killers and has
:14:54. > :15:02.served many years in jail. He remembers Captain Mbaye Diagne.
:15:03. > :15:11.How many times did you personally see Captain Mbaye Diagne going
:15:12. > :15:49.through your roadblock? Was there not any talk of trying to stop him?
:15:50. > :15:56.To find out more about Captain Mbaye Diagne, this man who risked his own
:15:57. > :15:57.life to save so many others, I travelled to his home country,
:15:58. > :16:20.Senegal. This is the capital, Dakar. I've
:16:21. > :16:26.come to meet a man who was his friend and comrades and who served
:16:27. > :16:34.in the same UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda 20 years ago. He is now one
:16:35. > :17:28.of the most senior officers in the Senegalese army.
:17:29. > :17:35.He was a Muslim? He carried alcohol around in his car to give out to the
:17:36. > :18:00.militia to make friends with them. Before he was posted to Rwanda, he
:18:01. > :18:25.lived in this area of Dakar and his family are still here.
:18:26. > :18:31.This woman came from an army family and net Captain Mbaye Diagne at a
:18:32. > :18:32.social event in the barracks. They married in 1988 and had two
:18:33. > :18:42.children. He would phone home from Rwanda once
:18:43. > :19:26.a week. By now, several weeks into the
:19:27. > :19:32.genocide, the whole of Rwanda was involved in violence. Captain Mbaye
:19:33. > :19:43.Diagne was stuck in the middle of it. His own home video of the battle
:19:44. > :19:47.for central to Gali shows this. He helped organise another convoy,
:19:48. > :19:51.trying to take truckloads of refugees across the front line to
:19:52. > :19:56.safety. On`board one lorry was a Rwandan doctor who worked for an
:19:57. > :20:00.American aid agency at the time. `` ``Kigali. Militiamen forced it to
:20:01. > :20:11.stop on this hill. It was around here that the lorry
:20:12. > :20:19.was stopped. Did they try and put you off the
:20:20. > :20:37.lorry? What happened? They climbed on top of the lorry to
:20:38. > :20:43.pull you out? What was Captain Mbaye Diagne doing at this
:20:44. > :20:58.Eventually, Captain Mbaye Diagne and the other officers persuaded the
:20:59. > :21:10.militiamen to back off and leave the refugees on the trucks.
:21:11. > :21:21.Two months into the wall and there is intense shelling and small arms
:21:22. > :21:25.fire every day in the capital. We know from Captain Mbaye Diagne's
:21:26. > :21:29.wife that all the death and destruction he was seeing first hand
:21:30. > :21:53.was beginning to take its toll on the man.
:21:54. > :21:58.Two days after that phone call, he was sent on a mission for the
:21:59. > :22:10.general. It meant crossing the frontline, again. On the morning of
:22:11. > :22:14.the 31st of May, 1994, there was suddenly a lot of chatter of the
:22:15. > :22:20.walkie`talkies of the UN peacekeepers that I was with at the
:22:21. > :22:25.time. I heard on one of them, we fear that a military observer has
:22:26. > :22:31.been killed. I rushed down to this point, where the reports were coming
:22:32. > :22:43.from. It was quite clear that at mortar bomb or rocket had landed
:22:44. > :22:46.just behind the drivers position `` driver's because shrapnel had gone
:22:47. > :22:50.through the door and we know that some of it hit Captain Mbaye
:22:51. > :22:57.Diagne's head. There was blood on the seat and it had gathered in the
:22:58. > :23:18.foot well as well. And that is how he died.
:23:19. > :23:27.It was just not right that he was killed. Something was not aligned to
:23:28. > :23:33.that day for him. One person, being unfairly destroyed like that, does
:23:34. > :23:36.have a significant impact and did have a lot of impact on the rest of
:23:37. > :23:58.us, personally. We cried. I don't know what to say.
:23:59. > :24:10.I think he will always be remembered in this country.
:24:11. > :24:16.The genocide continued for another four weeks, until the Tutsi rebels
:24:17. > :24:18.defeated the government forces and installed a new regime which is
:24:19. > :24:46.still in power today. In the end, what does it matter that
:24:47. > :24:50.this one individual, Captain Mbaye Diagne from Senegal in west Africa,
:24:51. > :24:59.saved hundreds of lives here in Rwanda? It does not stack up against
:25:00. > :25:03.the genocide, 800,000 people were killed back in 1994 in three short
:25:04. > :25:08.months. There is no moral equivalent. But it has to matter
:25:09. > :25:15.that this individual, showing extraordinary bravery, tenacity and
:25:16. > :25:20.wit, managed to save these people and it has to matter that there is
:25:21. > :25:24.some humanity in all of the horror. He was a man who did simply what he
:25:25. > :26:07.thought was right. We've seen pollution levels falling
:26:08. > :26:10.in the last 24 hours and through the weekend we will maintain this
:26:11. > :26:15.Atlantic feet of air south to south`westerly wind will blow in
:26:16. > :26:16.cleaner out but also a lot of cloud and there will be rain at times as