Remains of eight victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi have been exhumed from the compound of Pentecostal ADEPR Church in Gahogo, Nyamabuye Sector in Muhanga District, Southern Province.

Some of the victims were discovered and subsequently exhumed in a mass grave on Monday, September 30 as workers dug a pit latrine.

It remains unclear whether the victims were related or not, but many victims lost their lives in large groups and were subsequently buried, some still alive, by their killers in mass graves. Others were killed from different places only for their remains to be dumped –along with others – in mass graves.

It was suspected that more victims remain beneath the compound and the search was still on.

This comes just as survivors in the Rwezamenyo Sector in Kigali’s Nyarugenge District are still searching for the remains of their loved ones at a site where more than 100 victims were exhumed over a week ago.

Speaking to The New Times on Wednesday, Ibuka President, Dr Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, said these developments pointed to reluctance of communities to volunteer information about the whereabouts of the remains of Genocide victims.

"It’s disappointing,” he said, calling on any Rwandan with information that could lead to such finds to come forward and share it with authorities or survivors’ organisations.  

Ibuka, or Remember, is the umbrella of Genocide survivors.

Over a million people lost their lives in a spanning three months during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.