Rwanda has begun a solemn commemoration of 800,000 people killed with knives, clubs and other weapons during three months of genocide of 1994.
President Paul Kagame laid a wreath at a memorial site where more than 250,000 people were buried in the capital city of Kigali. Songs were sung and poems recited at the beginning of a week of events.
Speaking after the ceremony, Kagame pledged that history would never repeat itself. “That is our firm commitment. Our bodies and minds bear amputations and scars but none of us is alone. Together we have woven the tattered threads of our unity into a new tapestry.”
He said Rwandans had granted themselves a new beginning and were “wounded and heartbroken … but unvanquished”.
Officials and foreign dignitaries joined around 2,000 people in a “walk to remember” from Rwanda’s parliament to the national football stadium, where candles were to be lit in a night vigil.
Kagame, who led a rebel force that ended the slaughter, lit a remembrance flame in the capital Kigali. Rwandans will mourn for 100 days, the time it took in 1994 for about a tenth of the country to be massacred. Most of those who died were minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus, killed by ethnic Hutu extremists.
Source: Guardian Newspaper
