This year’s Gisembe tournament has been temporarily called off following the sudden death of Rwanda’s assistant national basketball coach Jean de Dieu Nizeyimana.

Nizeyimana passed away on Tuesday after suffering from poor blood circulation.

The annual event was supposed to be held this weekend according to the initial schedule.

"Originally, the tournament had been scheduled for November 3-4 but we were forced to alter the program after Nizeyimana’s tragedy,” an official from the national basketball federation said.

The tournament has now been moved to November 10-11 before the play-offs action gets under-way the following weekend.

APR are the defending champions after ousting Espoir in last year’s final.

Similar to last year’s edition, four clubs are expected to be part of this year’s action.

The clubs include Espoir, APR, Rwanda National University (UNR) and Marines.

Gisembe is an annual tournament organized and funded by Espoir basketball club in memory of one of the club’s all-time basketball greats.

Gisembe Ntawugera was one of the club players who perished during the 1994 genocide.

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