Kigali — Ibuka, the main organisation grouping together Rwandan genocide survivors, has demanded that all senior figures suspected to have taken part in the 1994 Rwanda genocide be suspended and legal measures taken against them.

The demands were made after Ibuka's (which means 'remember' in Kinyarwanda) annual congress held in Kigali on Sunday.

In a communiqué sent to Hirondelle News Agency, Ibuka asked the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions (NSGJ) to "deeply investigate leaders suspected of having taken part in the genocide and suspend them if there were serious accusations against them".

According to the NSGJ, over 600 leaders, among them members of parliament, senior government officials and army officers, are suspected of being implicated in the genocide.

Ibuka's congress also condemned acts of intimidation directed against witnesses in the Gacaca trials and called on the competent authorities to take appropriate protection measures.

The communiqué continued by calling upon the prosecution of members of religious organisations who are preventing their followers from fulfilling their duties and testifying in the Gacaca trials.

Every year on April 7, Rwanda commemorates the genocide anniversary which, according to the Rwandan government estimates, cost the lives of over one million.

The eighth Ibuka congress also called upon relevant authorities to give medical access to survivors who were infected by the HI-virus during the genocide.

According to Avega, a genocide widows association affiliated to Ibuka, one in three women raped during the genocide between April and July 1994 is HIV positive.