Rosamond Halsey Carr (1912–2006), American humanitarian and author, was the last of the foreign plantation owners in Rwanda, where she also ran a children’s orphanage. She was born in South Orange, New Jersey. In 1942, she married British explorer and filmmaker Kenneth Carr. The Carrs settled in the Belgian Congo in 1949, and after their divorce she settled in Mugongo, Rwanda, to run a plantation growing flowers. In 1994, she was evacuated from Mugongo by Belgian marines during the Rwandan genocide, returning when her security was no longer at risk. She founded the Imbabazi Orphanage later in 1994. She has been featured on CNN, the BBC, and Today. She died in 2006 in Gisenyi, Rwanda, and was buried at Mugongo, her flower farm in the shadow of the Virunga volcanos. The new orphanage building, where her legacy continues, is next to the farm. |
