As residents of Bugesera District observed the 30th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, on Tuesday, April 16, the umbrella organisation for Genocide survivors' associations, Ibuka, renewed its call for people to provide information about the whereabouts of bodies of victims who are yet to be found.
The appeal was made as 126 bodies of Genocide victims found in 2023 and 2024 were given a decent burial at Ntarama Genocide Memorial in Bugesera. The memorial, which was a Catholic church in 1994, is the final resting place for more than 5,000 victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi killed in different parts of the district.
The bodies of the Genocide victims laid to rest on Tuesday were found in the sectors of Musenyi, Nyamata, Mwogo and Ntarama.
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"As we have come to honour our loved ones and lay them to rest, we extend our appreciation to all institutions that work with survivors in the endeavour to find Genocide victims who are yet to be buried," said Christine Kagoyire, Ibuka's vice president.
"We also ask Rwandans who took part in these deplorable acts, which were committed in broad daylight, to come out and reveal the whereabouts of our loved ones. They know very well where our people were dumped. It is unacceptable that the bodies of our loved ones are found accidentally when people start digging at construction sites."
"For the perpetrators, being able to reveal the whereabouts of the Genocide victims is one of the indicators of the repentance of someone who has understood that what they did was a crime and that they would not repeat it," Kagoyire said.
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Survivors in Ntarama said they would not allow anyone to revise the history of the Genocide.
"During this moment, we recollect the memory of our loved ones who were killed in this church on April 15, 1994. We still remember the faces of our loved ones and hear their screams during the attacks, the hunger, and the humiliation they suffered," said Benoit Kaboyi, a genocide survivor.
"We cannot forget this history. But we also remember their good deeds and the values they held dear."
Kaboyi extended his appreciation to RPF-Inkotanyi for stopping the Genocide against the Tutsi. He said that survivors have a role to play in fighting genocide denial and revisionism.
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Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement Jean Damascene Bizimana said the Genocide against the Tutsi, which claimed more than one million lives, was preceded by acts that showed its planning, such as the relocation and isolation of Tutsi families from around the country to places like Bugesera. At the time, the region was a dense forest zone with wild animals and tse-tse flies. The Tutsi were relocated to the area so they could die.
"When you look at the Ntarama and Nyamata churches, the killers and the planners went to the same church with their victims. In other places, the massacres were committed by church leaders in places you would not expect killings to be committed," Bizimana said.
"This shows that such ideology is deep-rooted. If it is not uprooted, as Kagoyire noted, the killers of the Tutsi will not reveal the whereabouts of the victims' bodies."
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Bizimana noted that an ideology of genocide was taught to Rwandans for decades since 1959 to the extent the killings of Tutsi were possible in churches in 1994, in some cases led by religious leaders.
"If an ideology of genocide has taken root among people, it takes over the heart, the mind, faith - everything," he said.
