Genocide memorial centre to be constructed in Tanzania

The governments of Rwanda and Tanzania are currently in talks on the possibility of constructing a Genocide memorial site in the latter’s Ngara district to accommodate the remains of victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi that were discovered in Tanzania.Speaking to The New Times, the executive secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide, Jean De Dieu Mucyo said plans are in the final phase to have the memorial site built.“The talks between the two countries are about the ownership of the land where this memorial site will be located. As soon as the countries agree, the construction will begin,” said Mucyo.Martin Muhoza, the in-charge of conservation and exhibition at CNLG said that, CNLG officials visited the place, made a report and handed it over to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Currently, there are remains of 917 Genocide victims buried in Ngara District of Tanzania.In 2009, CNLG was tipped by someone that there were Genocide remains buried in Tanzania. Since then, several trips were made by officials to Tanzania and indeed found that some remains that floated on Kagera River in 1994 were buried there.Dumped bodiesDuring the Genocide, victims were dumped in the Akagera and Nyabarongo rivers—both tributaries of Lake Victoria—and were washed down and landed at different shores of East Africa’s biggest lake.It is reported that Everready Nkya, a Tanzanian national, took up the initiative of burying the bodies in 1994 in Ngara, located three kilometers away from the Rusumo border that divides Rwanda and Tanzania.The bodies were buried in a mass grave but not accorded a decent burial; an issue the Genocide commission says is being considered by both Rwandan and Tanzanian authorities.The discovery in Tanzania follows several others that were made in Uganda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).Uganda leads in numbers with remains of over 10,000 victims buried there in parts of the country’s Mpigi, Masaka and Rakai districts.