In the first days of the 100-day genocide that left an estimated 800,000 people dead, an armored convoy of Belgian troops pulled up to the gravel courtyard in front of the single-floor hospital, which was under siege from Hutu militiamen seeking to exterminate the Tutsis inside.

Videotape later showed hundreds of patients running out of the hospital to greet the troops, their slightly blank faces filled with relief and joy. Some fell to their knees in gratitude. Others raised their arms in elation. What they did not realize is that the Belgian soldiers had come to evacuate the hospital's expatriate, white staff, not rescue them.

"Please take us. Don't leave us here," they begged, as the whites were taken on board.

The last sight that the soldiers and evacuees saw as they trundled away down the dirt road in their armored vehicles was the befuddled faces of the mental patients, their arms starting to sink limply to their sides as they tried to grasp the fate to which they had just been abandoned. All but a few of the hospital's patients were slaughtered.