lit a candle 5h agoMy tía had a VHS of a Kwibuka documentary she taped off some satellite channel in the late nineties, and that flute at the start of "Ese Mbaze Nde?" used to stop the whole room. I didn't understand a word of Kinyarwanda, I was maybe ten, but I understood the voice. 83 years old. Didn't love Europe, she said once, Europe is not a place to grow old. She went home anyway, at the end. That counts for something.
Their story
Suzanne Nyiranyamibwa (also written Suzana, Souzanne or Susan Nyiranyamibwa) was a Rwandan singer, songwriter and cultural performer whose voice became one of the most recognisable sounds of Rwanda's remembrance of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. A co-founder of Itorero Isamaza, the Belgian-based troupe of Rwandan women whose songs and…
Suzanne Nyiranyamibwa (also written Suzana, Souzanne or Susan Nyiranyamibwa) was a Rwandan singer, songwriter and cultural performer whose voice became one of the most recognisable sounds of Rwanda's remembrance of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. A co-founder of Itorero Isamaza, the Belgian-based troupe of Rwandan women whose songs and dances raised support for the Rwandan Patriotic Army during the liberation struggle that began in 1990, she later wrote and performed some of the best-known Kwibuka commemoration songs, above all "Ese Mbaze Nde?" ("Who Can I Ask?"). She died on Friday, 16 October 2026, at the age of 83 according to The New Times.
Nyiranyamibwa was born in Rwanda in 1943, one of nine children. Her life was shaped by anti-Tutsi violence long before 1994. Her father, Phillip Karahamuheto, was killed in the 1963 pogroms; she recalled that he was among those thrown into the river at Rusumo, in the former Kibungo region of eastern Rwanda. In 1973, as persecution and killings of Tutsi continued, she fled Rwanda with her husband. The siblings scattered, each looking for a new life elsewhere.
She spent about 16 years in what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where she and her husband had four children. Her husband died there in exile. She then moved to Brussels, Belgium, where she raised her children and lived for most of the following decades. She later said she had never loved Europe and had stayed there because her children needed to study and she wanted to be close to them.
In Belgium she became part of the cultural life of the Rwandan diaspora. She performed with the association Rugari, which promoted Rwandan arts and culture in Belgium, sang on the collective album Rwanda Rugali alongside artists such as Jean-Marie Muyango, Cecile Kayirebwa and Ben Ngabo, and recorded the personal albums Gira Ubuntu and Memory Day. Around 1990 she was among the founders of Itorero Isamaza, a troupe that at first brought together Rwandan women and girls through traditional song and dance. Members began by making small monthly donations to the liberation effort; when that proved too little, they turned to music, composing songs and performing across Belgium and in Switzerland, France and Germany to mobilise support for the Rwandan Patriotic Army. Alongside fellow artists including Jeanne d'Arc Karigirwa Ruboneka, Anonciata Gatera, Francoise Ruboneka and Anonciata Kayisire, she sang the songs that became the soundtrack of the struggle, among them "Gira Ubuntu", "Turaje" and "Nimuberwe Bakobwa".
The genocide of 1994 took her mother, Carolina Mukanzigiye, who had been in Belgium for medical treatment and to visit her exiled family before returning to Rwanda. When Nyiranyamibwa herself returned after the genocide, she found a country she no longer recognised. In early 1996, about a year and a half after the killing ended, she composed "Ese Mbaze Nde?", a lament sung in the voice of a survivor who has no one left to ask about the dead. Writing in The New Times in 2025, the researcher Tom Ndahiro described the song as "not simply a song" but "a cry", and called her voice "the most authentic sound of Rwanda's conscience". The song moves from personal grief to a collective eulogy for the hills, churches and families destroyed in 1994, and it ends not with vengeance but with a call to fight hatred and resentment.
"Ese Mbaze Nde?" became a fixture of Kwibuka, the annual 100 days of commemoration, alongside other songs of hers including "Nyumva Mana", "Ibuka" and "Humura Nyanza Ntuzazima". She performed at memorial sites such as the Murambi Genocide Memorial in Nyamagabe, where she sang her commemoration song "Ngirente", and at national and community commemoration events. In 2021 she told Kigali Today that singing commemoration songs matched the life she had lived. The Rwandan filmmaker Gilbert Ndahayo also worked with her music in his documentary work on the genocide, saying the music of artists such as Nyiranyamibwa provided "a feeling of transition from the genocide".
Her wider repertoire celebrated Rwandan culture and everyday life. Songs such as "Ndavunyisha", "Nkumbuye Iwacu", "Ituze", "Telefone", "Inkera y'Abahizi", "Uraho Rwanda", "Mama Shenge" and "Sinkabya" were widely loved, and many of her recordings were collected on her official YouTube channel.
In December 2016, after more than four decades abroad, Nyiranyamibwa returned to settle in Kigali, saying Europe was not a place to grow old. She spoke of reviving Isamaza with surviving members and of releasing new songs, and she continued to perform at Kwibuka events, including the 30th commemoration in 2024, and at diaspora events such as the Kwibohora liberation celebrations. She also mentored younger performers, some of whom accompanied her on stage. In December 2025 the Isango na Muzika Awards in Kigali gave her an honorary award for her long contribution to Rwandan music, alongside Massamba Intore and Zizou Al Pacino.
She died on 16 October 2026. The New Times reported that she died of an illness, InyaRwanda reported that she died in Belgium where she had been receiving treatment, and IGIHE reported that her family described the death as sudden. Tributes came from across Rwanda, including from the Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, Dr Jean Damascene Bizimana, who wrote that she had wiped away countless tears of grief and sorrow caused by the Genocide against the Tutsi.
Biography adapted from The New Times (16 Oct 2026; Tom Ndahiro, 14 May 2025), Kigali Today, InyaRwanda, IGIHE, Kinyarwanda Wikipedia, Afrisson, Imigani/IGIHE, ICMGLT, Amahoro News. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“I never loved Europe. I lived there because I had children who had to study, and I needed to be close to them and care for them. Europe is not a place to grow old.”
On returning to settle in Rwanda in 2016 (translated from Kinyarwanda)
“Who can I ask? The one I should ask is no longer alive.”
From "Ese Mbaze Nde?" (1996), as translated by Tom Ndahiro in The New Times
“I enter Rwanda and no longer recognise anything. It's as if its heart has been torn out.”
From "Ese Mbaze Nde?" (1996), as translated in The New Times
“Singing commemoration songs matches the life I lived.”
Kigali Today interview, April 2021 (translated headline)
“Many of those we were with in Isamaza are still alive but have left it. I am going to try to see if we can work together again, but it is difficult.”
On hoping to revive Itorero Isamaza after her return (translated from Kinyarwanda)
“Rest in peace, mother, sister, friend of many, Intore, Suzana Nyiranyamibwa. You depart beloved, having wiped away countless tears of grief and sorrow caused to Rwanda by the Genocide against the Tutsi.”
Tribute by Minister Dr Jean Damascene Bizimana on X, 16 October 2026 (translated)
Photos
2Suzanne Nyiranyamibwa
by People Forever
Nyiranyamibwa sings her commemoration song Ngirente at the Murambi Genocide Memorial in Nyamagabe
by People Forever
That documentary stayed with a lot of people who weren't even Rwandan, I think.