1994 RWANDAN GENOCIDE VICTIMS COMMEMORATED
PanARMENIAN.Net
07.04.2009 12:36 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The remains of thousands of victims of the Rwandan
genocide are to be reburied in Uganda, it has been announced – 15
years after the killings began.
Some 800,000 people were killed during the genocide, with many of
the bodies thrown into Rwandan rivers. Nearly 11,000 of them were
eventually recovered from Lake Victoria in Uganda and buried by
villagers.
Rwanda’s ambassador to Uganda said they will now receive proper
burials in three permanent mass graves. "We have decided to accord a
decent burial to those genocide victims," Ignatius Kamali said. "We
want the exercise done within 100 days from today."
The Rwandan embassy in Uganda said the exhumation and reburials will
start after Easter.
The embassy’s first secretary John Ngarambe said the Rwandan community
would go to Golo, the likely main re-burial site, to mark the official
commemoration of the genocide on Tuesday.
Ugandan officials said that they welcomed the plan.
The genocide began on the evening of 6 April 1994, after a plane
carrying Rwandan Hutu President Habyarimana was shot down. Hutu
militias began a campaign of orchestrated killing.
Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in
100 days, BBC reported.