Warrant Officer (Ret’d) Kevin ‘Sammy’ Sampson

In northern Iran, Sampson operated communications equipment and protected unarmed military observers who reported to the UN about Iranian military actions near the border. A similar team operated in Iraq. Isolated and watched by Iranian commandos, the Iranian-Iraqi body exchanges in no man’s land were one of the few times Sampson met another Canadian outside his three-person team. It was there, in an Iranian compound, he says he quickly grew up and became a problem solver. Still a teenager, he developed a toughness that served him throughout his military career.

While his friends were in university, Sampson was gaining real life experience in peacekeeping and war. The first year he was deployed internationally was also the year the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the United Nations’ blue helmet peacekeeping forces, for their collective efforts in the cause of peace around the globe, including the efforts of the UN Military Observation Group in Iran-Iraq.

Following his deployment in Iran, he served in the Gulf War and was one of the first Canadians to enter Kuwait City, helping re-establish the Canadian diplomatic mission and capturing Canada’s first prisoner of war since Korea. But it was in Rwanda as a peacekeeper with the second United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR II), that Sampson’s young life changed completely.

Rwanda, a small rural nation in central Africa, is roughly half the size of Nova Scotia. Two distinct ethnic groups, the Tutsis and Hutus, make up the most of its population. For centuries, the two ethnic groups were rivals in Rwandan society. However, the country was forever changed when on 6 April 1994 the Hutu president of Rwanda was assassinated, launching the country into a nightmare of violence that escalated into one of the worst genocides of the 20^th century, resulting in the deaths of 800,000 innocent Rwandans and displaced millions more.

The UNAMIR mission in Rwanda, led by Canada’s Major-General Roméo Dallaire, had been created in October 1993 but was unable to stop the genocide of April 1994. In response, the UNAMIR II mission was authorized in mid-1994 to help stabilize the country by providing medical and security assistance to the Rwandan people. Canada was one of the first countries to join, tasked to integrate with peacekeepers from other nations throughout Rwanda and build a command infrastructure for the more than 5,000 additional UN troops soon to arrive.

With limited time to prepare, teams of radio operators were deployed deep into the Rwandan jungle with rifles and backpacks to report on acts of genocide and the desperate humanitarian situation. Tasked with providing security for their base, unarmed Military Observers and local aid agency workers, Sampson’s four man team was alone and hours from reinforcements.

He says his time in Rwanda was different from previous deployments and he was forced to make the hardest decisions he’s ever had to make.

“We were stepping over kids we couldn’t save, to save those we could.”

“The isolation of Iran; the scenes and sounds of war of Kuwait - but [Rwanda was] the absolute shocking portrayal of humanity at its worst.”

“You had to distance yourself, you had to become cold-hearted,” Sampson says. “We were stepping over kids we couldn’t save, to save those we could.”

Sampson learned from overwhelmed aid workers that “you can’t save everyone and you can’t help anyone if you are a casualty.”

He accepted this way of thinking as a necessity to continue doing his job, even if it was a stark contrast to what he was used to. He says sleeping became a challenge and often had limited supplies, forcing them to stand in line with refugees.

Without a functioning government, armed peacekeepers like Sampson were needed to deter those trying to steal from, harm and kill civilians and aid workers. Often Sampson and his colleagues would take action to stop crimes in the absence of police forces, without backup and outnumbered.

Sampson waited for three months—half way through his deployment— for the main security force of 800 soldiers to arrive from Tunisia. It was during this time where Sampson first met a four-year old Rwandan at an orphanage he and fellow Canadians helped establish, called the Imbabazi. Sampson and the boy developed a strong bond, so much so that he was later given the name Sammy by the orphanage’s founder, Ms. Rosamond Carr.

After his mission in Rwanda ended, Sampson went on to serve on UN missions in Haiti, Central Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Afghanistan followed by a NATO deployment in Italy from 2005 to 2008.

“In the Army on operation you expect to be shot at while living in less than ideal situations, and see death and destruction whether its peacekeeping or war. The genocide in Rwanda was different, as we lost the battle every day and the results were scattered around us on the faces of dead or dying children. It eventually slightly improved, but the early days of Rwanda will be with me forever.”

“I spent years suppressing my emotions and memories, but finding Sammy was part of that [healing] process”

Since his time in Rwanda, Sampson has struggled with PTSD from the horrors he witnessed there. As the years went by, memories of Rwanda continued to haunt him and he feared that the orphanage’s children hadn’t survived. But in 2018, he found the young orphaned boy with whom he had bonded with many years earlier, on Facebook. Now a grown man, he reached out to Sammy Tuyishime and with the support of friends, flew him and a friend to Ottawa.

“I spent years suppressing my emotions and memories, but finding Sammy was part of that [healing] process, he was part of the guilt hanging over my head. You have to reframe your negative experiences so you can try to have a normal life.”

Having retired from the military, Sampson is currently the vice-president of the Rwanda Veterans Association of Canada, working to bring Veterans together for wellness, commemoration and camaraderie. “We want to provide better outcomes for a special group of Veterans,” Sampson says, and to give help to those who need it.

As we recognize the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, we remember the service of Canadians there. With courage, integrity and loyalty, Sammy Sampson has left his mark. He is one of our Canadian Veterans. Discover more stories.