In the build-up to the 20th commemoration of the Genocide against Tutsis, the Kwibuka (remember) Flame of remembrance on Thursday reached Nyaruguru district, Southern Rwanda.
Over 1,000 men, women and children could be seen seated in the Kibeho parish ground, keenly listening to a disturbing testimony of Angélique Uwase.
Uwase, who was 15 years old when the Genocide happened in 1994, recounted how her family’s neighbours turned into their worst enemies and began their hunt to kill Tutsis. She was lucky to survive.
A Kibeho Genocide memorial site lies a few meters away. And it’s right here, at Kibeho parish, where over 28,000 Tutsis were brutally killed mainly with machetes and grenades – as they sought refuge at this parish − in the country’s 1994 Genocide against Tutsis that claimed over a million lives in a hundred days.
“This flame is a very significant symbol. It’s hope. It’s another step forward towards renewal”, said Nyaruguru district’s Mayor, François Habitegeko.
Nyaruguru district is the Kwibuka Flame’s eighth stop, with the district expected to host it for three days. It comes from Gisagara district, still in the South, and from Nyaruguru it will then head to Nyamagabe district for another three days.
By April 7, when the 20th commemoration of the Genocide against Tutsis officially begins, the Kwibuka Flame will have toured all of Rwanda’s 30 districts.
According the Rwanda government, the Kwibuka Flame symbolizes remembrance as well as the resilience and courage of Rwandans over the past twenty years.
Carried in a simple lamp, it will be used to light other lamps in communities around Rwanda. To mark the 20th commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi, all memorial fires throughout the country will stem from this single Kwibuka Flame.
On returning to Kigali, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame will use the Kwibuka Flame to light the National Flame of Mourning. This will take place on 7 April 2014, marking the official beginning of the national mourning period.
The flame will also be the source of the fire used at the candlelit vigil at Amahoro National Stadium on the evening of 7 April 2014.
Kibeho “Holy Land” name jeopardized
To many Catholics across the world, and indeed throughout Rwanda, Kibeho rings a bell.
Back in 1981, the Virgin Mary is reported to have appeared, in different moments, to three school girls at a Kibeho-based high school.
Two decades later, in 2001 that is, the Catholic Church authenticated the apparitions and a pilgrims’ influx ensued. At least 100,000 pilgrims make it to Kibeho every year for prayers.
But during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis, Kibeho made a dramatic u-turn – from “holy” to hell.
Kibeho was the site of the mass murder of students from Marie Merci high school. And thousands of Tutsis were killed at the local Catholic Church where they had sought sanctuary.
The Interahamwe militia shot into the church, threw in grenades and asphyxiated victims with smoke from outside.
The French-led Opération Turquoise, which provided a safe haven for génocidaires’ transit into neighbouring Zaire – now the Democratic Republic of Congo − after the end of the Genocide, made Kibeho became a stronghold of the Interahamwe up until the Rwanda Patriotic Front liberated the area in 1995.
Below is a snapshot of the Kwibuka Flame event at Kibeho, Nyaruguru district
The Kwibuka Flame
Nyaruguru district’s Mayor, François Habitegeko, making his welcoming speech
Among the crowd, a white woman who works in the area seeks shelter in an umbrella amid biting sunshine to follow the Kwibuka Flame event
School C\children watch as a group carrying the Kwibuka Flame passes by
A group of young boys and girls singing a remembrance song, whose main message rotated around hope, unity and renewal
A young girl recites a poem at the event