Three Rwandan artists: Liza, Meddy and The Ben missed performing at the annual BOZAR festival in Belgium. This year’s festival dubbed “Huza”, translated to mean (Bringing together), took placed on Friday, March 12, and attracted musicians from countries around the Great Lakes Region.
Three Rwandan artists: Liza, Meddy and The Ben missed performing at the annual BOZAR festival in Belgium.
This year’s festival dubbed "Huza”, translated to mean (Bringing together), took placed on Friday, March 12, and attracted musicians from countries around the Great Lakes Region.
"I couldn’t attend because the invitation was sent late. And, the terms were not conducive as we had to pay for our return air tickets and accommodation,” Liza said.
The Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Culture and Sports, Laureen Makuza, emphasised that there was no way the artists could have attended the festival because the procedure through which the organisers sent the invitation were inappropriate.
"It was addressed to the Belgian Ambassador to Rwanda, instead of addressing it to the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The invitation also came late and made the artists unable to access their visas on time,” Makuza said.
Makuza added that: "We (the Ministry) did what we could, but it was too late for them to acquire the visas because it takes 15-days to apply for a Belgian visa.”
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