Management and staff members of the Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA), on Thursday, held a commemorative event for its 159 staff members who were killed in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.Known then as Electrogaz, the utility body was one of the few government agencies that employed Tutsi in a country that had crumbled to discrimination prior to the Genocide.“While we studied at the university, we were taunted that the lucky Tutsi would only find work at Electrogaz and indeed after my education, I ended up working there,” Ernest Rwagasana, a former employee of Electrogaz narrated.“When the Genocide began, it was easy to identify and hunt us down. I remember many of my colleagues who were murdered or dragged to be murdered by the same people they worked with.”The Minister of State in charge of Water and Energy, Marie Francoise Isumbingabo, encouraged the relatives of the diseased to forgive in order to heal their wounds.“The Genocide against the Tutsi was planned from day one, right from the high government officials to the smallest person in the community and that is why it seemed easy for them to kill over one million people in a few days,” Isumbingabo said.“However, such atrocities will never happen in Rwanda again,” she pledged. Yves Muyange, the Director General of EWSA, said that the fallen employees were capable citizens who drove the energy sector of Rwanda before losing their lives due to their identity and assured their relatives that EWSA will always remember them.
