Children reassured of better, safe Rwanda

Carrying placards bearing messages of remembrance, hope and resilience, primary and secondary school pupils in Huye District joined other residents on Friday to remember children and women killed during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in the area. The memorial was organised particularly for 326 children and women who were killed in a ditch located in Muyogoro in Huye Sector. Immaculée Mukankiriho, a child adoption and orphans officer at the National Children Commission, who represented the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion at the event, castigated the killing of innocent lives. “It is too sad that women were killed, forced into miscarriage; innocent children killed without knowing why. We should remember them and give them value and respect as we deal with the Genocide aftermath,” she said. She recalled how children in school were given identification along ethnic lines against the backdrop of entrenched divisions. “As a result, when we wanted to play, other children would always shun us saying we were Tutsi,” Mukankiriho said. She reassured the children that there is a firm foundation for a solid future that the present government will sustain. “Now children have to make use of the available opportunities presented by the current government such as inclusive education to shape their future,” she noted, urging women to give a message of hope and teach love and heroism among children. Huye mayor Eugène Kayiranga Muzuka said whoever taught or was taught hatred, which culminated into killing innocent lives, must repent. He called on Rwandans to play a role in fighting Genocide denial and nation building. A country that has a good vision and leadership has a firm foundation for proper child upbringing and development, he said. Annociata Mukandagano, in her testimony, said perpetrators convened women and children at Muyogoro on false promise of protection only to massacre them. Remains of 326 victims were retrieved from a mass grave in Muyogoro and accorded a decent burial. The site where the women and children were killed is now a residential place. Mayor Muzuka said they are planning to build a memorial indicating that the area was once a killing ground.

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Children reassured of better, safe Rwanda