Nyanza, 11 May 2019 – Rwandans from across the country on Saturday convened in Nyanza, Southern Province to honor Tutsi families who were totally exterminated during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The ceremony was characterized by a night vigil with moving testimonies by survivors.
Addressing the participants, Minister of Justice, Johnston Busingye called for efforts to publish more books on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, mainly by documenting wiped out families as part of efforts to preserve the memory, prevent genocide from ever happening again and to fight its ideology and denial.
“I thank members of GAERG who have so far published books about their testimonies regarding 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Those books are huge contributions to raise knowledge about genocide history and its long-term preservation since there are still people denying it and we must fight them,” he said.
Championed by the association of graduate student survivors of the Genocide (GAERG), the process to document the wiped-out families started 11 years ago, and the research is still ongoing.
A family is said to have been wiped out when the father, mother and all children were all killed.
Preliminary findings indicate that 15,593 families were completely wiped out. Those families were made up of 68,871 members. Karongi District has the highest number of wiped-out families with 2,839 families, composed of 13,371 members, followed by Nyamagabe with 1,535 exterminated families with 5,790 members.