2024-04-07 20:21:40
This Sunday, Rwanda began the hundred days of mourning established by the country to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the 1994 genocide in which more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered, a massacre that still shocks the world and Rwandan society.
To begin the commemoration, the country’s president, Paul Kagame, accompanied by the first lady, Jeannette, lit the traditional flame of remembrance at the Genocide Memorial Center in the capital, Kigali, where more than 250,000 lay in mass graves. victims of the massacre.
In a solemn ceremony with moments of silence only interrupted by commemorative songs sung by a military band and by protocol instructions, a dozen heads of state and government paid their respects in front of the white cement blocks where the victims’ graves are housed.
Among the leaders present were Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and South African Presidents Cyril Ramaphosa; Central African Republic (CAR), Faustin-Archange Touadera; Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina; South Sudan, Salva Kiir; Republic of the Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso; Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan; and the Czech Republic, Petr Pavel.
Likewise, the head of State of Mauritania and current president of the African Union (AU), Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, and the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, attended, on the same day that marks precisely six months since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, for which Tel Aviv faces accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Several former presidents also traveled to Kigali to join the memorial events, including the American Bill Clinton and the Frenchman Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as the president of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel.
The commemorative program starts today throughout the country includes the prohibition of large celebrations, such as weddings or sports competitionsand the organization of concerts and other cultural or leisure events not related to the genocide in bars and public spaces.
Furthermore, within the framework of these acts, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has issued new certificates to register four more genocide memorials as world heritage sites, in Kigali, Bisesero ( west), Nyamata (southeast) and Murambi (south).
“This means international recognition that what happened in Rwanda is a tragedy, not only for Rwanda but also for the entire international community, all of humanity,” UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay told the press this Friday.
The one hundred days of mourning marked by the Rwandan Government will conclude on April 13 with an event at the Rebero Genocide Memory Center (Kigali), in memory of the politicians who were murdered for opposing the massacre.
The genocide began on April 7, 1994 after the assassination the previous day of the presidents of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, and Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira (both Hutus), when the plane they were traveling in was shot down over Kigali.
The massacre that followed – the Rwandan government accused the Tutsi rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) of the assassination, against whom it had waged a war since 1990 – caused the death of at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in just over three months.
The genocide was one of the worst ethnic massacres in recent human history.
#Rwanda #commemorates #30th #anniversary #genocide