Memorials in Rwanda

The “Wall of Names” in the Kigali Genocide Memorial will never be totally complete: of the 250,000 people who were buried here in collective graves, only a small number have yet to be identified. Their corpses were found on the streets of the Rwanda capital of Kigali in 1994.  

In 2004, with foreign support, a national memorial site was established next to the graves. It includes a modern permanent exhibition, an educational center, a garden of reflection and a monument dedicated to the murdered children. In addition to the genocide in Rwanda, the exhibition also addresses the history leading up this event and similar events in other countries. The remains of victims and murder instruments are also on display. Explanations are provided to visitors through an audio guide. The memorial is managed by Aegis Trust, an organization in Great Britain involved in the prevention of genocide. It does this on behalf of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG).

The benches are neatly aligned in this church in the Bugesera district, about a one-hour car ride to the south of Kigali. But the shelves on the back wall of this former Catholic church are jarring because they contain a dense collection of human skulls.

In 1994, about 5,000 people sought safety in the brick building. On April 15, Hutu paramilitary forces carried out a bloodbath and literally butchered the people seeking refuge. Today, individual pieces of clothing from the victims hang on the walls of the Ntarama Genocide Memorial. It is believed that babies were killed in the building behind the church and their blood subsequently smeared on the walls. In front of the church building, stone coffins for the dead were placed in front of the church building, creating a place for relatives and visitors to lay flowers.

The scarf on this altar is still covered in blood. Some 10,000 people sought refuge in the former Catholic church in April 1994. But Hutu militias broke holes into the brick walls and through grenades inside.

They later stormed the church to shoot or kill the people on the inside with machetes. After the massacre, many more people in the surrounding area were also murdered. Approximately 50,000 dead lie in graves around the building, which is located about 30 kilometers south of Kigali. The church is now a memorial. The holes in the walls are still visible, as are the bullet holes in the ceilings. All that remains of the victims are their clothing and personal identification. The IDs, which identified whether a person was Tutsi or Hutu, had special significance.