Former Minister of Health Col (rtd) Joseph Karemera has passed on at the age of 70, The New Times has learnt.

He also served as Minister for Education.

Karemera, one of the founding members of the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army, which liberated Rwanda in 1994, was a medical doctor and retired colonel.

The former senator also served as Rwanda's ambassador to South Africa.

He was Rwanda's first Minister for Health after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.