Captain Mbaye Diagne

It was 1994, in Kigali, Rwanda, during the genocide against the Tutsi.

The prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, had been murdered.

Her four children had survived. They were hiding in the compound of the United Nations Development Programme, right next to the Hôtel des Mille Collines.

A UN officer found them. His name was Mbaye Diagne. He was a captain in the Senegalese army.

He had been promised that UN armoured vehicles would come for the children. The vehicles never arrived.

So he found another way. He put the children in his car and hid them under clothing.

Then he made his way through the roadblocks to Kigali airport.

There, a Canadian plane took them to Kenya.

Mbaye Diagne was born on March 18, 1958, in Koki, in the Louga region of Senegal. He grew up in Pikine, a suburb of Dakar.

His language was Wolof. He also learned French and English.

He was one of nine children, and the first in his family to go to university. Then he entered the national school for active-duty officers.

In 1993, he was sent to Rwanda. He became a military observer with the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, UNAMIR.

He carried no weapon. Several times, he risked his life to save people.

At the roadblocks, he spoke several languages. He knew soldiers, militiamen. He joked to ease the tension.

He handed out cigarettes, money, alcohol, though he was a devout Muslim.

Usually, he carried no more than five people at a time. One day, he spent a whole day bringing twenty-five Tutsi from the Nyamirambo neighbourhood to safety.

He took them to the Hôtel des Mille Collines, or to Amahoro Stadium, under UN guard.

He often called his wife. Once, he passed the phone to Rwandans he had just driven to safety.

How many lives did he save? Estimates vary: dozens upon dozens, according to General Dallaire. As many as six hundred, according to the US State Department.

On May 31, 1994, in Kigali, a mortar shell landed near his vehicle at a checkpoint.

He died instantly. He had twelve days left in his mission.

Five days later, his body was returned to Senegal. He was buried with full military honours.

His wife, Yacine Mar Diop, remembered him this way:

For twenty years, his family received no word of appreciation from UN Headquarters.

Then, on May 8, 2014, the Security Council created the Captain Mbaye Diagne Medal for Exceptional Courage. On May 19, 2016, Ban Ki-moon presented the first one to his widow.

Mbaye Diagne was a Wolof-speaking Senegalese, a devout Muslim. What he did for strangers echoes Ubuntu, without being the same thing.

What remains of him is the image of a car approaching a roadblock. And, under the clothes, children who would live.