President Paul Kagame yesterday received a delegation of Burkina Faso army military officials at Village Urugwiro. The officials are in the country to strengthen military ties with Rwanda.

The team led by Gen. Nabere Honore Traore, the Chief of General Staff of the National Armed Forces, delivered a message to President Kagame from President Burkina Faso Blaise Compaoré.

The delegation, which is in Rwanda for a week, also met with defence minister James Kabarebe and Gen. Patrick Nyamvumba, the Chief of Defence Staff of the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) on Friday.

Speaking to journalists shortly after meeting the president, Gen. Traore said that he was in Rwanda to strengthen military ties with his country.

"I visited President Kagame to deliver a message from our President Blaise Compaore and I think the message is about the good relations between our country and Rwanda,” he said, adding that he had outstanding discussions with his Rwandan counterpart Gen. Nyamvumba on how to strengthen military cooperation between the two countries.

Traore said that they toured Zigama Credit and Savings Society (CSS), a military and police savings cooperative, as well as various military training facilities. 

He hailed Rwanda for taking the lead in UN peacekeeping missions, adding that the Burkina Faso peacekeeping force in Mali will help Maj. Gen John Bosco Kazura to achieve his mission.

Kazura was last month named the force commander of the UN mission in Mali.

Presently, the RDF deploys more than 3,200 peacekeepers in Darfur, Sudan and over 850 in South Sudan.

The delegation also visited the Musanze-based Rwanda Peace Academy and got first-hand information regarding operation of the Military Medical Insurance (MMI).

Nyamvumba, who accompanied the Burkina Faso delegation to meet the head of state, said that they came to Rwanda to join the nation in celebrating 19 years of liberation.

Rwanda on Thursday marked Liberation Day, a day when the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) – now Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) – stopped the tragic Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and established a unity and reconciliation government that included other political parties.

"We have strong relations with Burkina Faso and our discussions dwelt on how we can further improve our relations,” he said.

The Burkina Faso team also expressed gratitude towards Rwanda’s recovery process in a short period of time and the role RDF plays in improving the lives of Rwandans, for instance the construction of homes for the vulnerable near Kami Barracks.

In May this year, Burkina Faso’s minister for Livestock and Fisheries, Jérémy Tinga Ouedraogo, visited Rwanda and met Dr Agnes Kalibata, Rwanda’s Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, to learn about Rwanda’s achievements, especially in the One-Cow- Per-Poor-Family-Programme (Girinka). 

The Girinka programme, which was started in 2006 to help address malnutrition, is a home-grown solution which bands together social cohesion, health, and community welfare.