On the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in which over 800,000 people mostly Tutsis were murdered, the country on Saturday buried remains of nearly 85,000 victims.
The remains of those buried on Saturday were found last year in some 143 pits discovered beneath homes on the outskirts of Kigali.
Remains from just 43 such pits were exhumed. 100 more pits are yet to be worked on.
The sombre burial ceremony was held in the capital Kigali as mourners sobbed around the white coffins containing the remains.
The remains of the victims of the 1994 mass killings were buried at the Nyanza Genocide Memorial in Kigali.
100 days of massacre
More than 800,000 people, were massacred over a period of 100 days. The killings were carried out by persons known as Hutu extremists and militia forces.
Their intention was to eradicate the Tutsi minority in Rwanda. Remembrance of this troubling mass killing takes place on April 7, the day the genocide began.
The mass killing ended on July 4 after Tutsi rebels led by Paul Kagame entered Kigali. The rebels chased the killers out of Rwanda.
Paul Kagame has since 1994 remained Rwanda’s president.
Rwanda’s Justice Minister Johnston Busingye said at the mass burial that “Commemorating the genocide against the Tutsi is every Rwandan’s responsibility — and so is giving them a decent burial.”
A relation of a victim Emanuel Nduwayezu told the AFP that “Right now I am very happy because I have buried my dad, my sister and her children, and my in-law. Twenty-five years have passed and I had not known where they were”.
“Everyday I was thinking and getting confused (about) where my dad was but now I found him and I have a buried him,” Nduwayezu adds.
11,000 other victims from the genocide have already been buried at the Nyanza Genocide Memorial.
Source: Africafeeds.com
