Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 81 continued ... Warrant Officer (Ret’d) Kevin ‘Sammy’ Sampson continued ... The UNAMIR mission in Rwanda, led by Canada’s Major-General Roméo Dallaire, had been created in October 1993 but was unable to stop the genocide of April 1994. In response, the UNAMIR II mission was authorized in mid-1994 to help stabilize the country by providing medical and security assistance to the Rwandan people. Canada was one of the first countries to join, tasked to integrate with peacekeepers from other nations throughout Rwanda and build a command infrastructure for the more than 5,000 additional UN troops soon to arrive. With limited time to prepare, teams of radio operators were deployed deep into the Rwandan jungle with rifles and backpacks to report on acts of genocide and the desperate humanitarian situation. Tasked with providing security for their base, unarmed Military Observers and local aid agency workers, Sampson’s four-man team was alone and hours from reinforcements. He says his time in Rwanda was different from previous deployments and he was forced to make the hardest decisions he’s ever had to make. “The isolation of Iran; the scenes and sounds of war of Kuwait - but [Rwanda was] the absolute shocking portrayal of humanity at its worst.” “You had to distance yourself, you had to become cold-hearted,” Sampson says. “We were stepping over kids we couldn’t save, to save those we could.” Sampson learned from overwhelmed aid workers that “you can’t save everyone and you can’t help anyone if you are a casualty.” He accepted this way of thinking as a necessity to continue doing his job, even if it was a stark contrast to what he was used to. He says sleeping became a challenge and often had limited supplies, forcing them to stand in line with refugees. Without a functioning government, armed peacekeepers like Sampson were needed to deter those trying to steal from, harm and kill civilians and aid workers. Often Sampson and his colleagues would take action to stop crimes in the absence of police forces, without backup and outnumbered. Sampson waited for three months—half way through his deployment— for the main security force of 800 soldiers to arrive from Tunisia. It was during this time where Sampson first met a four-year old Rwandan at an orphanage he and fellow Canadians helped establish, called the Imbabazi. Sampson and the boy developed a strong bond, so much so that he was later given the name Sammy by the orphanage’s founder, Ms. Rosamond Carr. After his mission in Rwanda ended, Sampson went on to serve on UN missions in Haiti, Central Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Afghanistan followed by a NATO deployment in Italy from 2005 to 2008. “In the Army on operation you expect to be shot at while living in less than ideal situations, and see death and destruction whether its peacekeeping or war. The genocide in Rwanda was different, as we lost the battle every day and the results were scattered around us on the faces of dead or dying children. It eventually slightly improved, but the early days of Rwanda will be with me forever.”
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