Decent burial set for exhumed varsity Genocide victims

HUYE-At least 15 bodies of victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi which were exhumed from a mass grave near a boys’ hostel at the National University of Rwanda, in November last year, will be accorded a decent burial at the university’s memorial site.The victims will be buried during the Genocide commemoration period that starts tomorrow.The bodies were found as workers were preparing a vegetable garden near the hostel.“One body was found under a tree which we had to uproot before exhuming it,” Vincent Ntaganira, who coordinates commemoration activities at the Huye-based university, told this paper.“We did not rush to bury them as we wanted to be sure that there were no other bodies around,”“We searched the environs but did not find more bodies, althoug cannot confirm that these are the last bodies to be found on this campus,” he added.Ntaganira noted that the bodies were “preserved well” as the university’s community prepares for a burial ceremony on April 21- the day the massacres started 18 years ago at the oldest university in the country. Ntaganira disclosed that the identities of the victims remain unknown as anything that could provide information about them was destroyed, possibly by rain water that had penetrated the mass grave. “There were materials which looked like papers but all were totally destroyed. We tried to see if we could find anything with information about them or on anyone of them, but we found nothing.”It is estimated that over 500 people, mainly students and lecturers, perished at the university during the Genocide.In memory of the victims, a site was set up the university. On April 7, the University community will join the rest of Rwandans in commemorating one of the most cruel and rapid Genocide in the history of humanity.The commemoration ceremonies at the Huye District level will be held at the University.