Ever since 2009, as part of the 100-day mourning period for victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, a special but sad remembrance always takes place.

Though the Genocide took the lives of over one million people, some families suffered an irreversible fate; they were completely wiped out.

For the last ten years, GAERG, a group of former students who survived the Genocide, took it upon themselves to research and compile such families and what they came up with was astounding.

Even though the research is still ongoing, they have so far come up with 15,593 families that were completely wiped out. Those families were made up of 68,871 members.

That is the other tragic face of the Genocide that few people ever seem to remember, that an entire lineage can be erased. That is why GAERG has pledged to keep their candle burning and taking their story in all parts of the country, especially places where the most horrendous killings took place.

Today, the road leads to Nyanza in Southern Province where a vigil will be kept in the evening. The ceremony is usually marked by some of the most moving testimonies by survivors.

The least people can do is keeping the memories of the wiped out families, with every district erecting a monument in their honour. That would be sending a clear message to their killers; you might have wiped them off the face of this earth, but not from our memories.