Murambi Genocide Memorial in Nyamagabe District, Nyamata Genocide Memorial in Bugesera District, Kigali Genocide Memorial in Gisozi, and Bisesero Genocide Memorial in Karongi District are now inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
The inscription of the four memorial sites of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda on UNESCO's World Heritage List, as announced on Wednesday, September 20, was lauded by the Rwandan government as a historic decision that honours the memory of the Genocide victims.
The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi claimed more than one million lives in a period of three months.
Since 2012, local communities, national and international experts, and relevant advisory groups, including the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), an evaluation body, collaborated closely in a meticulous process that has resulted in the four Genocide memorials being included on the World Heritage List.
"This recognition strengthens the fight against Genocide denial and will serve to educate present and future generations," Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement Jean Damascene Bizimana, said.
Kigali Genocide Memorial in Gisozi
After the Genocide was stopped by the Rwanda Patriotic Army in 1994, Kigali's authorities chose this hill in Gisozi for mass graves. The memorial is a resting place for 250,000 victims of the Genocide.
The Kigali Genocide Memorial is the result of collaboration between Rwandan authorities and the Aegis Trust for Genocide Prevention, born from the National Holocaust Centre in the UK.
Opened in 2004, the memorial became the starting point for peace and values education integrated into Rwanda's national school curriculum.
Murambi Genocide Memorial
Murambi Genocide Memorial is a resting place for more than 50,000 Genocide victims. Located in Nyamagabe District, the memorial was initially a technical school, which became a place for killing in 1994.
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It's at this school that a large number of victims were killed and close to 1,200 bodies were preserved together with their belongings like clothes as evidence of Genocide that took place in the area.
Nyamata Genocide Memorial
Most of the Tutsi population living north and south of the country were forcibly deported to dwell in the barren and tsetse fly-infected area of Nyamata, located in Bugesera District.
Once the area was inhabited by the Tutsi around 1980, a church was setup for worship. In 1994, the once-holy place was desecrated. Over 40,000 people who had sought refuge there were all brutally massacred in one day.
After negotiations between the Catholic Church and the Rwandan government, the Nyamata church was converted into a memorial site, representing other churches in which the victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi were slaughtered.
Bisesero Genocide Memorial
Bisesero Genocide Memorial is also known as the memorial of resistance, for the bravery of the Tutsi who pushed back against Interahamwe attacks for days until the killers got support from French troops, as told by survivors. Between the months of May and June 1994, the Interahamwe killed over 40,000 Tutsi.
In 2014, the United Nations Security Council, following the example of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, confirmed that the Genocide committed against the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994 was a matter of public knowledge that should not be contested.
In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly designated April 7 as the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
