Hundreds of mourners on Sunday thronged Lambu Memorial Centre in Masaka District in Uganda to pay tribute to victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis. The sombre ceremony was marked by prayers and hymns as well as laying of wreaths on mass graves at the site. The mass graves there contain thousands of victims who were killed and thrown into rivers in Rwanda and bodies ended up on the shores of Lake Victoria. Lambu is home to over 3,000 Genocide victims. It is among three Genocide memorial centres in Uganda, the others being Kasensero in Rakai District and Golo in Mpigi in the country’s central region. In his speech, Rwanda’s High Commissioner to Uganda, Frank Mugambage, called for concerted efforts in ensuring that genocide never happens again anywhere in the world. He underscored the need to fight those that still harbour genocide ideology, adding that these will be defeated by forces of peace. “Our intention is to make sure that there is more documentation in all the Genocide sites in Uganda, so that we keep the memory of what happened, Mugambage told the mourners, who included students, members of local communities and Rwandans living in Uganda. He added that it is through this openness that the world will restore the dignity of the victims of the Genocide. “Those who continue to propagate falsehoods about Rwanda will never succeed. We are resolute in taking achievements already registered,” he said. Livingstone Mutebi, the Local Council 1 Chairman for Bukibonga village, commended all those that participated in retrieving the remains of the victims from the lake in 1994. “The bodies were really in bad shape but the local people here did their best,” he said. Mhamood Noordin Thobani, a Ugandan businessman, was commended for his role in preserving the bodies, and eventually decently burying them in all the three memorial sites Thobani said that his mission is to put up structures at the Ggolo Memorial Centre in Mpigi District, which will include a prayer house and an auditorium for screening films on the Genocide. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
