Charlotte Wilson

In 2006, Richard wrote a book entitled Titanic Express: Finding Answers in the Aftermath of Terror, describing the events leading up to his sister's death and his own efforts in tracking down and attempting to bring her killers to justice.

The FNL finally admitted responsibility for the massacre in 2005, but by then they, and indeed Sibomana himself, were being given "provisional immunity" by the Burundi government and the international community as part of a tentative peace process being negotiated in the country.

"We believe, as Charlotte did, that Africa's problems can only be solved by Africans themselves, but that our solidarity can help. A week after the August 2004 Gatumba massacre, a multi-ethnic group of Burundian volunteers from 'Youth Intervention for Peace' took food and clothes to the survivors, paid for in part by the Charlotte Wilson Memorial Fund. It was only a small gesture, but it was something they could do."

Charlotte's family established the Charlotte Wilson Memorial Fund a few weeks after her death to support students in financial difficulty at Shyogwe school, where Charlotte had been teaching. By 4 June 2001, (the day that would have been Charlotte's 28th birthday) the fund had raised more than £10,000, and has since widened its activities to support HIV awareness campaigns in Rwanda and peacebuilding work in Burundi. In Titanic Express, Richard Wilson writes of his pride in the fund's success:

In late 2000, Charlotte met and fell in love with Richard Ndereyimana, a Burundian who had been in Rwanda since 1997, first as a Dominican friar and later as a teacher. A few weeks later the couple decided to get engaged. They spent Christmas together with other volunteers by Lake Kivu, then decided to travel to Bujumubura, the Burundian capital to meet with Richard's family, despite the fact that the whole of Burundi, and particularly rural areas, was in a state of civil war and out of bounds to VSO volunteers.

In 1999, having recently finished her PhD, during which time she had been a volunteer with St. John Ambulance in Hammersmith, Charlotte made the decision to become a volunteer science teacher with VSO. She was posted to the village of Shyogwe, near Gitarama in southern Rwanda, one of 23 in the second wave of volunteers sent by VSO, who had recently opened a programme to help rebuild the country shattered by the 1994 genocide. Charlotte enjoyed her time in Rwanda and integrated well into the local community, despite having to teach in French and being one of only a handful of white people in the area.

Charlotte Wilson (4 June 1973 – 28 December 2000) was a British volunteer teacher working with the organisation Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) in Rwanda. She was murdered in Burundi in December 2000 by the National Forces of Liberation (Palipehutu-FNL or FNL), a Hutu rebel group, along with her Burundian fiancé and nineteen others travelling from Kigali to Bujumbura. The incident became known as the Titanic Express massacre, named after the bus service on which the victims were travelling.