Friday , November 8 2024

140 Rwandan genocide victims get decent reburial

Kigali, Rwanda | Xinhua | Remains of 140 victims of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi were reburied on Sunday at Nyanza memorial site in Kicukiro district in Rwandan capital city of Kigali.

The remains were discovered in August from a pit at the backyard of a house in Nyarugenge district, which belongs to a former notorious Interahamwe militia member.

After the exhumation in August, the remains of only 16 victims were identified by their relatives based on the clothes they were dressed in, said Emmy Ngabonziza, mayor of Nyarugenge district, during the burial ceremony attended by several government officials, local residents and survivors.

Residents with information on where genocide victims were dumped should come forward and tell authorities so as to give them decent reburial, he said, adding that it is one way of fostering national unity and reconciliation.

Remains of the 1994 Rwandan genocide are still being discovered in many parts of Rwanda nearly three decades since the massacres.

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Last week, local authorities, residents and Ibuka jointly started exhuming a mass grave believed to contain remains of about 5,000 victims of the genocide in Gatsibo District, eastern Rwanda.

The genocide killed over 1 million people, mainly ethnic Tutsis in 100 days from April 7 to mid-July in 1994.

In the 2018-2019 fiscal year, the remains of 118,049 genocide victims were discovered in 17 districts countrywide, according to National Commission for the Fight against Genocide.

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Xinhua

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