During one midsummer night, 10-year-old Sandra and her 6-year-old sister were lying in bed, trying to sleep. They were refugees, exiled from their home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, staying in a camp in Burundi operated by the United Nations. She shared a mattress with Deborah and their mother, Rachel, in one tent, while her father and brothers, Alex and Heritage, stayed in the tent beside theirs. One of Sandra’s other sisters, Princesse, also stayed in their tent; her third sister and brother, Adele and Chris, respectively, stayed in a tent with their grandparents.

Suddenly, Rachel shook her daughters awake and told them the camp was being attacked. Soon thereafter, Sandra saw her aunt get hit in both arms with bullets; one dangled from her body, almost entirely separated from its socket. Rachel desperately looked for something with which to wrap her sister’s arm. Sandra offered her “favorite silky blue dress that made [her] feel like a princess,” but the material proved too slippery to serve as a tourniquet (8).

Rebel soldiers swarmed the camp. Someone suggested that the refugees cut a hole in the tent to secretly escape. One person obeyed, allowing a stream of people to sneak through.