As Rwandan swimmer Cesar Rwagasana strode into the Sydney stadium during the opening ceremony of last year's Paralympic Games, he was closely followed by Mami Yoshida, the woman who helped him walk again.

The swimmer, who lost his left leg in the conflict after the Rwandan genocide of 1994, was fitted with a prosthetic limb by Yoshida's nongovernmental organization Mulindi/Japan One Love Project.

Rwagasana is one of about 800,000 Rwandans, or 10 percent of the country's population, maimed by land mines and the fighting initiated by the slaughter of minority Tutsis by Hutu extremists.