26.12.08 - RWANDA/GENOCIDE - THE 15th COMMEMORATION OF THE GENOCIDE WILL BE CELEBRATED IN NYANZA

Kigali, 26 December, 2008 (FH) - The fifteenth commemoration of the Tutsi genocide of 1994 will be celebrated, on decision of the Council of the Government, on the memorial site of Nyanza in the district of Kicukiro, in Kigali, announced Rwandan national radio.

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According to the same source, the Council of the Government gathered on 24 December and decided that this commemoration will take placed under the sign of combat against negationnism. It will have as it theme: "Let us commemorate the Tutsi genocide of 1994 while fighting against negationnism and building our country".

The memorial site of Nyanza holds more than 5 000 victims of the genocide, primarily the refugees of the Technical School of Kicukiro (ETO), beforehand under the protection of a Belgian contingent of the forces of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR).

After the premature departure of the latter, on April 11 1994, these refugees were sent to Nyanza and coldly murdered, the same day, by elements of the paracommando battalion, the governmental army, and the Interahamwe, according to the testimony of survivors.

Officially, this 15th commemoration will be held from 07 to 13 April 2009. In addition, the association of the survivors of the genocide, IBUKA, will prolong it until July to cover, as usual, the 100 days that the genocide lasted.

For nearly 6 months already, IBUKA has had its offices in the same enclosure as the memorial of Nyanza. "To look out on ours and to take care of them", according to the words of Naphtal Ahishakiye, head of the memory department within this association.

According to Kigali, the Tutsi genocide of 1994 resulted in more than one million victims amongst Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

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