Humanitarian Dies in Buffalo Plane Crash

Alison Des Forges ’64, a graduate of Radcliffe College and one of the world’s leading voices on human rights abuses in Rwanda, was one of 49 passengers killed in the crash of Continental Flight 3407 outside Buffalo Thursday night.

Her death—part of the first fatal commercial airliner crash in the United States in more than two years—was confirmed by the New York-based non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch, where she worked for over two decades as a senior adviser in the Africa division. In a statement released on its Web site, Human Rights Watch praised Des Forges as “the world’s leading expert on the 1994 Rwanda genocide and its aftermath.”

Those who knew Des Forges at Radcliffe, when she went by her maiden name Alison Liebhafsky, expressed no surprise that she had made her life’s work to uncover the human rights abuses in the world.

Susan E. Shepard ’65, who lived in Comstock Hall (now part of Pforzheimer House) with Des Forges, said she remembered her as a smart and serious student, as well as “kind and gentle.”

“She always went out of her way to be nice to me,” Shepard said.

Karen L. Worth ’64, Des Forges’ close friend, echoed those sentiments, saying that Des Forges was “always thinking of other people,” from her time at Radcliffe through her later years.

Worth and Des Forges met at Radcliffe and bonded over a shared dedication to the Phillip Brooks House Association, a student-run public service organization.

They quickly became friends and spent the summer after their junior years in Tanzania, working in an abandoned refugee camp near the Rwandan border. The summer sparked Des Forges’ interest in Rwanda, and she wrote her Ph.D. thesis about the nation while working toward a degree at Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

In 1999, Des Forges was awarded the MacArthur “Genius Grant” Award for her work as an activist and her book, “Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda.”

“She was fearless, courageous, the consummate professional,” said Des Forges’ colleague Georgette Gagnon, director of Human Rights Watch’s Africa division. “She was the kind of person who would in any situation have the smartest and wisest decision on the course of action to be taken.”

In her time at Human Rights Watch, Des Forges spent four years interviewing the victims of the Rwanda genocide and provided expert witness testimony before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Despite the seriousness of her work, Gagnon said Des Forges always maintained her sense of humor. “She was a great pleasure to work with and to be with,” her co-worker said. “She was fun, sociable, a wonderful colleague, mentor, and friend.”

Des Forges is survived by her husband, Roger V. Des Forges, two children, and three grandchildren.

“The Harvard-Radcliffe community should be so proud of her and so proud of her work,” Shepard said. “I hope we will do something to commemorate Alison and to build on the work that she started.”