KIGALI - Government is holding talks with authorities in Tanzania to enable the upgrading of a recently discovered Genocide memorial site in the country, The New Times has learnt.

Close to 970 bodies of the victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi, were last month discovered buried in Ngara District of Tanzania.

"There are ongoing efforts that involve talks with authorities here on the issue of Genocide remains in Tanzania,” Shakilla Umutoni, the First Counselor of the Embassy of Rwanda in Tanzania said in an interview yesterday.

The Rwandan envoy said that the talks are taking place between the Tanzanian government, and the Rwanda - Tanzania friendship association, which include finding out if there are more Genocide sites in the country.

"We are hopeful that the talks will yield fruits because we have shown how important it is to upgrade the Genocide site and discover if there are any other sites in the country where Genocide remains were buried,” Umutoni said.

The Executive Secretary of the National Commission for the fight against Genocide (CNLG), Jean de Dieu Mucyo, last week expressed the need to upgrade the Genocide site, adding that they had dispatched a team of technicians to visit the site.

Everready Nkya, a Tanzanian national, took up the initiative of burying the bodies in 1994 in Ngara, located three kilometers away from the Rusumo border that divides Rwanda and Tanzania.

There have been several discoveries of Genocide remains in countries surrounding Rwanda, with Uganda leading in the number of sites in the region.

The Genocide Commission said that they are looking at how they can merge the Ugandan sites from six to three.  Over 10,000 bodies are buried in parts of the country’s districts of Mpigi, Masaka and Rakai.

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