MURAMBI MEMORIAL

The Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre is located in the town's former technical school, 2 km from Gikongoro. It was not completed when the genocide began. Under the orders of Prefect Laurent Bukibaruta and Mayor Laurent Semakwavu, 50,000 Tutsis were grouped together in different classes, supposedly for their safety. But on the evening of 21 April 1994, a crowd of killers, soldiers, militiamen and inhabitants mixed together, came up from Gikongoro. Guns, grenades, hoes, studded clubs, everything was used for the parish priest. Only 10 Tutsis escaped... The corpses were buried using the communal diggers, and some children were buried alive. For three months, the surviving Tutsis were hunted down like game by the population, sometimes with dogs and even into the marshes. Only 34 people are believed to have survived the Murambi massacre. In June 1994, the French chose Murambi as the headquarters of the highly controversial Operation Turquoise, which, according to Kigali, served only to protect and exfiltrate the genocidaires. The sinister classes today are reminiscent of the barracks of Auschwitz. In some of them, exhumed and whitewashed bodies are on display, all frozen in horror and pain. A visit to this memorial centre, founded in 1995, is a poignant and moving reminder of the events that took place here. Murambi is one of the six main centres established in Rwanda to commemorate the Tutsi genocide. Sensitive souls refrain!