The Kigali Genocide Memorial commemorates the 1994

Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Gre ...

. The remains of over 250,000 people are interred there. There is a visitor centre for students and others wishing to understand the events leading up to the Rwanda genocide against Tutsi in 1994. The Centre is a permanent memorial to those who fell victim to the genocide and serves as a place where the bereaved could bury their family and friends. The Centre is managed and run by the

Aegis Trust The Aegis Trust, founded in 2000, is the British NGO which campaigns to prevent genocide worldwide. Based at the United Kingdom's Holocaust Centre, which opened in 1995, the Aegis Trust coordinates the UK Genocide Prevention All-Party Parliamentary ...

on behalf of the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide.

Location

The memorial and the memorial centre are in Gisozi, Rwanda, just outside of central Kigali.

Background

In April 1994, reports of systematic mass murder within Rwanda began to filter out of

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

and circulate throughout the world. Little was done to stop the genocide. To outsiders, the genocide was represented as tribal-based ethnic violence, with the Tutsis the victims and the Hutus as the perpetrators. Precisely how many people were actually murdered may never be known; estimates vary between 500,000 and over a million. The number of people killed is widely accepted as being somewhere close to 800,000.

History

In 2000, the Kigali City Council began to construct a building, which would eventually become the Memorial Centre.

Aegis The aegis ( ; ''aigís''), as stated in the ''Iliad'', is a device carried by Athena and Zeus, variously interpreted as an animal skin or a shield and sometimes featuring the head of a Gorgon. There may be a connection with a deity named Aex, a ...

was invited to turn the genocide memorial center into a reality. The

then began to collect data from across the world to create the three graphical exhibits. The text for all three was printed in three languages, designed in the UK at the Aegis head office by their design team, and shipped to Rwanda to be installed. This memorial centre is one of six major centres in Rwanda that commemorate the Rwandan genocide. The others are the

Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre The Murambi Technical School, now known as the Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre, is situated near the town of Murambi in southern Rwanda. Description This Memorial Center is one of six major centres in Rwanda that commemorate the 1994 genocide a ...

Bisesero Genocide Memorial Centre The Bisesero Genocide Memorial is a national memorial in Rwanda which commemorates the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. 40,000 people were killed where the memorial now stands. Location The memorial is on Muyira hill at the small settl ...

and

Ntarama Genocide Memorial Centre Ntarama Genocide Memorial Centre (, ) is one of six genocide museums in Rwanda. Five thousand people were killed here in the Catholic church. Location Ntarama is located in Bugesera District. It is an hour's drive south of Kigali, the national c ...

, the

Nyamata Genocide Memorial Centre The Nyamata Genocide Memorial is a national memorial and World Heritage Site in Rwanda commemorating the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group. It is based around a former church in the town of Nyamata, roughly south of the capita ...

and the Genocide Memorial Centre in Nyarubuye.Sites mémoriaux du génocide : Nyamata, Murambi, Bisesero et Gisozi
UNESCO, Retrieved 2 March 2015 Human remains were brought from all over the capital after they had been left in the street or thrown in the river. They are buried together in lots of 100,000. The memorial was opened in 1999. The centre started when Kigali City Council and the Rwandan

National Commission for the Fight against Genocide The National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) is a Rwandan organisation that is concerned with the 1994 Rwanda genocide. They are involved with studying what happened. Their mission is to preserve the memory of the crimes and to s ...

commissioned a UK-based

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

prevention organization called

to establish the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. In April 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the genocide, the Kigali Genocide Memorial was inaugurated. The response from genocide survivors to the creation of the centre was immense. In the first week, over 1,500 survivors visited each day. In the first three months of the centre's opening, around 60,000 people from a variety of backgrounds visited it. Over 7,000 of these visitors were from the international community.

Facility

The centre documents the genocide, but it also describes the history of Rwanda that preceded the event. Comparisons are also made with similar sites in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

, and

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

. Unlike the ex-concentration camps at

Auschwitz Birkenau Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...

, the Rwanda site include human remains and the tools and weapons used in their destruction. The upstairs floor of the centre includes three permanent exhibitions, the largest of which documents the genocide in 1994, helping to give Rwanda’s nightmare a historical context. There is a children’s memorial, with life-sized photos, accompanied by intimate details about their favorite toys, their last words and the manner in which they were killed. There is also an exhibition on the history of genocidal violence around the world. The Education Centre, Memorial Gardens and National Documentation Centre of the Genocide contribute to a meaningful tribute to those who perished and form a powerful educational tool for the next generation. The Kigali Memorial Centre is international. It deals with a topic of international importance, with far-reaching significance, and is designed to engage and challenge an international visitor base. Audiovisual and GPS documentation projects record and substantiate survivor testimony and also record the

Gacaca court The Gacaca courts () were a system of transitional justice in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide. The term 'gacaca' can be translated as 'short grass' referring to the public space where neighborhood male elders (abagabo) used to meet to solve lo ...

process. The Memorial has had hundreds of thousands of visitors. The memorial concludes with sections on the search for justice through the international tribunal in Arusha as well as the local Gacaca courts (traditional tribunals headed by village elders). The informative audio tour (US$15) includes background on the divisive colonial experience in Rwanda and as the visit progresses, the exhibits become steadily more powerful, as visitors are confronted with the crimes that took place here and moving video testimony from survivors. The commission from the Kigali City Council was to develop the memorial site, where up to 250,000 genocide victims were buried in

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of exec ...

s, into a memorial centre and permanent exhibition for the benefit of survivors and young people. The Aegis Trust manages the Kigali Genocide Memorial and is developing it with a school of education. File:Skull and Belongings of Genocide Victims - Genocide Memorial Center - Kigali - Rwanda.jpg, Skull and belongings of Genocide victims at the centre File:Panorama of Photos of Genocide Victims - Genocide Memorial Center - Kigali - Rwanda.jpg, Genocide victims File:Kigali Genocide Memorial (6817416143).jpg, Kigali Genocide Memorial site File:Gisozi Rwanda Genocide Memorial.jpg, Kigali Genocide Memorial building

References

External links

*
Genocide Archive of Rwanda

The Aegis Trust

{{authority control Buildings and structures in Kigali Rwandan genocide museums Museums established in 2004 Museums in Rwanda 2004 establishments in Rwanda Gasabo District Tourist attractions in Rwanda Tourism in Rwanda Monuments and memorials in Rwanda