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Feeding the refugees, taking care of the wounded, helping the reconstruction, Vjeko was on all fronts. He arrived in Rwanda in 1983 and never left the country of a thousand hills. Universal sanctuaries, Rwandan parish churches were used for a long time as refuge for the Tutsi fleeing the massacres that preceded the genocide. Sadly, in 1994, these places of faith and peace became the scene of slaughters, such horror remains unthinkable. In this darkness, enlightened souls refused to die. Among them, Brother Vjeko Ćurić, whose courage was so exceptional that his formers parishioners feel orphan today. Brother Vjekoslav Ćurić – better known as Vjeko- was of Croat-Bosnian origin and born the 26th of April 1957 in Lupoglav, in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Second of a family of 6 children, he studied in Visoko, in the centre of the country. In 1976, he chose to join the Order of Friar Minor, better known as the Fransiscans. He was ordained as a priest the 21st of June 1982, in Sarajevo, the capital. The same year, Vjeko answered the missionary call of his order, and left for Paris, to prepare his mission. The 18th of July 1983, at only the age of 26, he flies to the heart of Africa, in Rwanda. He will stay there until his assassination, fifteen years later.
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