You can run and hide, but eventually you will be caught, if not by the law, by time. They are dying, one by one, those horrid creatures. And each time one goes, the world is rid of one more evil and is cleaner and safer, and we can all breathe more easily.

Normally, we would not say this of the departed. It sounds callous. We would usually condole with the bereaved and commend the deceased to the creator and plead with him to have mercy, forgive him his sins and grant him rest in eternal peace.

But that is only for normal, decent people. Not for those who have turned their back on humanity, denied their own, and ripped out their souls and flung them where they can never be retrieved. In exchange for what? I don’t know. Perhaps a feeling of power even if only for a fleeting moment. Or to satiate unnatural lusts. Or fulfilling terms of a diabolical pact.

For those you cannot feel grief, only relief that they have met their end and cannot cause death and pain any more.

I am talking about the masterminds and executors of the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, those convicted and others who continue to hide and evade justice. They can run and hide but eventually time will catch up with them and then they will still have to answer for their sins.

Perhaps it is good for them. Life on the run cannot be fun, even for those who have the means to buy their safety. Guilt follows them everywhere they go. It rides on their backs, firmly strapped, and they cannot shake it off. It is in their heads and hearts and they cannot flush it out. They are not free.

The other day the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) confirmed that Major Protais Mpiranya, Commander of the Presidential Guard during the genocide, and indicted for his role in it had died. We only learnt of his death last week, but it turns out it occurred 16 years ago in Zimbabwe and the man was buried there.

Mpiranya had been on the run since the defeat of the genocidal government in 1994. It was always known that he was hiding in Zimbabwe, obviously with the knowledge and support of some people in high places.

They must have known about his death too, but chose to keep his passing a secret as they had done his presence in the country, and probably for the same reasons.

His death and its announcement is similar to that of another high profile genocidaire, General Augustin Bizimana, minister of defence at the time of the genocide. The IRMCT confirmed his death in May 2020, although he had died in August 2000 in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo, and been buried there

Both men, and others, are gone and there can be few regrets about their passing. Two stand out. One, they went before answering for their crimes before a court of law. They kept running and hiding and have in a sense escaped justice. The other, most lived to a ripe old age, a right they denied their victims.

It is understood another person indicted for genocide wants to escape justice by pleading advanced age. Felicien Kabuga, long on the run and only arrested in May 2020 in Paris, is now 89 and his legal team claim that makes him unfit to stand trial.

Still, that cannot be much comfort to them. They cannot run or hide any longer and must reckon with their maker. For believers that is some consolation. Finally, they have to face divine justice. And it is certain to be severe because none of them is known to have repented their actions.

But even if they think they have been smart, dying the way they do - often alone, away from family, among strangers, with no identity or an assumed one (anonymous really) – cannot be exactly the way they wished to go or what they bargained for. Just desserts some might say and no one will accuse them of being insensitive or uncharitable.

And again, genocidaires who have died before accounting for their crimes and their apologists might think that death has helped them cheat justice. Not quite. They forget that it has not absolved them either.

Confirmation of Mpiranya’s death last week is a reminder that many of his kind still walk free around the world. They have not been arrested and brought to trial. Just about the same time, there was another reminder that they may run and hide but eventually will be caught before death snatches them. It was announced that Major Pierre Claver Karangwa, the organiser of the massacre of Tutsi seeking sanctuary from marauding genocidaires at Mugina Catholic parish in Kamonyi, had been arrested in the Netherlands.

Some countries are doing what everyone should be doing: make sure there is no place to hide. Others where they are known to be should do the right thing: apprehend genocidaires (suspects if you will) and bring them to trial, not hide and shelter them.

Still, questions remain. Why are they able to hide for so long, sometimes in plain sight? Is it because there is something they have in common with their protectors – shared hatred, ideology? Is there perhaps some kind of material gain or political calculation? Or is it because nobody really cares?

These and more reasons cannot stop the Grim Reaper coming for them. At the end of it all, was flight and the crimes that led to it really necessary?

The views expressed in this article are of the writer.