Euphrasie Ngayabosha

It is in deep grief that the family of the late Pierre-Claver Sendegeya shares the passing of his wife Euphrasie Ngayabosha endearingly known as Mwamikazi (the Queen), on January 12, 2026 at Toronto Western Hospital. After a long-fought health battle, Mwamikazi peacefully transitioned, aged 83 years, transitioned peacefully and surrounded by her 6 children, 8 grand-children and great-grandson. She was a beloved Matriarch. She joins the ranks of many ancestors, including her close brother l’Honorable Émile Mwroroha only months after his own passing. In her waning days, she used her last breaths to call loved ones near and far, blessing them and imparting life advice. She reassured everyone that she is headed somewhere beautiful beyond imagination.

Euphrasie was born in 1943 in the lush hills of Muruta, in the province of Kayanza, on the outskirts of the African equatorial forest in northern Burundi. She was born into a large tight-knit clan, the fourth of nine children and one of the only 2 sisters. At 23, she married the late Pierre Claver Sendegeya in the country’s capital, Bujumbura, where they had their first three children. In 1972, during a political crisis plaguing the nascent republic, the young mother left for Normandy, France, taking her children to join Mr. Sendegeya who had been there on an art school scholarship. After his studies in 1976, the family returned to East Africa, first to Rwanda, where they had another daughter in 1977, and then to Burundi in 1979. Two more children were born in 1980 and 1982.

We reflect on her enormous legacy as a formidable businesswoman. In the 1980s, Mwamikazi became the first woman to incorporate a business in Burundi, one that she subsequently scaled to much success and praise. A renowned entrepreneur in her adopted province of Gitega and beyond, she paved the way for women to dare to dream big. Her success showed that courage and sheer audacity can upend unfair gender expectations and discrimination. She was a pioneer among her peers, even becoming the first woman to drive a semi-truck, often still garbed in her elegant and colourful boubous.

Mwamikazi was as driven as she was kind. She was an adoptive mother to many, opening her heart and home to countless souls displaced by the country’s protracted civil war. She faced death defiantly, at times braving live bullets in her relentless quests to ensure she could feed entire communities. She led by action, by helping and by loving without limit.

All her life, she was an emphatically and deeply engaged in community. In 1993, she was a founding member of Sangwe Kibondo, a charitable organisation based in Gitega, Burundi, established out of necessity to care for hundreds of children orphaned by war by providing them with housing, education through university and, above all, much needed love. Today, the association remains strong as ever. Mwamikazi’s children have pledged to continuing to support the sustainability of this remarkable initiative in her name.

In many ways, Mwamikazi was also a product of her time. She lamented that, just by being born a woman during colonial rule, she was deprived of an advanced formal education granted to her brothers. Had she been given the opportunity, she would have made an astute scientist; this was evident in her deep admiration of and curiosity towards of the intricacies of the natural world. With such desire, she ensured that as many young people around her attained university education through her means and influence. Many may remember her force and bold legacy.

Her children will also remember Mwamikazi as the calming presence she embodied in her later years. In her retirement, at the age of 72, she resettled in Canada to be closer to the 6 children she had sent away for a better life 20 years earlier. And matriarch effortlessly settled in the new role of an ever-attentive grandmother, helping raise her children’s children. As a grandma, Nyokuru, she shared traditional knowledge and folklore that would otherwise be lost to the winds of time, in addition to simply tending to the everyday needs and caprices of babies. She maintained an active life, gaining new skills such as a love of swimming and of solving puzzles. Her adoptive neighborhood on St Clair West will undoubtedly miss the royal lady of Burundi would graced the streets with her long daily walks.

Our queen’s given Christian name—Euphrasie—comes from the ancient Greek word euphrasia which means ‘joy’; it also designates a flower (Euphrasia Officinalis) with medicinal powers for vision. It is a name befitting of a woman who dreamt boldly beyond her circumstances without sacrificing tenderness and humor. Mwamikazi became a widow in 2004. May she bring her joy in her heavenly reunion with her departed husband, Mr. Sendegeya. Mrs. Euphrasie Ngayabosha is survived by her older brother, Pierre Claver Makoto, and her younger brother, Elie Ndayizeye; as well as her accomplished children Jean-Claude Nsabiyeze, Laetitia Mizero-Hellerud, Nadine Kanyana, Aline Nizigama Moynié, Claudette Gacuti (Kijolie) and Olivier Busagara (Député); her grandchildren Yann and Nicole Niteka, Selen and Ayda Nsabiyeze, Caetano and Simone Moynié, step-grand-daughters Julia and Lou Moynié, and the newest addition to the clan—her great-grandson Enzo Mwezi Niteka, as well as an immense extended and chosen family.

Although her physical absence will be felt in every aspect of the lives of those who knew and loved her, there is solace in the collective resolve to perpetuate her works and rich heritage. A humble legend has entered her well-deserved eternal rest, no longer constrained by the bounds of flesh and bones. Her family honoured her in her living. May she rest in power as an ancestor in the next realm as she was one of them on earth.