Hivwhen heads of state, diplomats and survivors gather to mark the 10th anniversary of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, Petronille Mujawamariya will be lying helplessly on a mattress in a gloomy mud hut, wondering how much more time she has to live.

　　Mujawamariya, bedridden for months and too weak to talk, is one of thousands of women who were infected with HIV, the virus the causes AIDS, as marauding gangs of extremists from the Hutu majority went from village to village killing and raping.

　　The women are dying a decade after the genocide as African leaders and Western diplomats gather today with Rwandans in Kigali, the capital, to remember the 500,000 people who were killed by bullets, machetes, clubs and hoes during the 100-day slaughter that began on April 7, 1994.

　　"Ten years after the genocide, it is still killing us," said Immaculee Ingabire, an activist with the Coalition on Violence Against Women. "When people describe her (Mujawamariya), they say 'survivor,' but she is not a survivor."

　　The genocide was organized by the extremist-Hutu government then in power in the central African nation, and most of the victims were Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

　　Entire families were wiped out as the Hutu killers targeted men, women and children. Over half a million girls and young women were raped in a "vengeful and sadistic manner," according to the UN Children's Fund.

　　Mujawamariya was one of thousands of minority Tutsis lured to a local government building near this small town, where they thought they would be safe. But as soon as the villagers assembled, members of a government-backed Hutu militia marched in, raping and slaughtering the unarmed civilians.

　　A un tribunal convicted Jean-Paul Akayesu, the area's mayor during the genocide, of 15 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity, torture and rape in 1998 for his role in the killing.

　　There are no accurate figures of how many of those sexually abused were infected with HIV during the genocide, but between 10 percent and 13 percent of the nation's of 8.2 million are infected with the deadly virus today.

　　When strife ended in July 1994, 43 percent of the country's women were widows.

　　More than 60 percent of the population live on less than US$1 per day, and most HIV-infected people can't afford the needed anti-retroviral drugs.

　　(The Associated Press)