In the immediate years after the Rwandan genocide, Callixte, his wife, Marcella, and their children had a deep resentment for their neighbors Andrew Birasa, his wife, Madrine, and their children.
Andrew, a Hutu coffee farmer who had known Callixte since they were young, had implicated Callixte for his genocidal crimes.
Though the two were good friends when they were growing up, and though there had been peace and harmony in the village until the ethnic tension came to a head in the 1990s, division between the two developed because Andrew had married Madrine, a Tutsi.
During the genocide, Hutus who married Tutsis were seen as enemies and were disdainfully labeled as “Tutsi lovers.”
In 1994, Callixte and a group of others killed many in their community, including Madrine’s parents and other family members.
While Callixte was in prison, the two wives would not speak to each other. Their kids would not play with each other and their livestock were not allowed onto each other’s lands.