Seromba, the priest who rolled a bulldozer on his congregation

The Kwibuka flame yesterday began its first leg of the countrywide tour, which will see it taken to all the 30 districts in the country before the commencement of the national mourning period on April 7.The flame, which signifies hope, was in Ngororero District yesterday, with the event taking place at Nyange Girls School, which in 1997 became an epitome of courage among the youth, when a group of students refused to give in to the demand of killers, by not separating themselves along ethnic lines.Just metres away from the school, stands another monument, one erected in memory of the over 3,000 people killed at a Catholic church, when the parish priest at the time hoarded them into the church with promise of protection, only for him to commandeer a bulldozer that tore into the church, killing everyone inside.The priest, Father Athanase Seromba, is currently serving a life sentence in a prison in Benin, after the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda overturned on appeal, his 15 year sentenced. Twenty years after the Genocide, memories of Seromba’s cruelty, are still vivid among the people who lived in the former Kavumu Commune, in Ngororero District.Aloys Rwamasirabo is a survivor of the Nyange massacre. He survived because he had fled the night before, as men were being picked from the church and killed by soldiers and the Interahamwe militia.“Men tried to pelt stones at the Interahamwe militia from the church compound, until they (Interahamwe) were reinforced by the soldiers. Sensing danger, I sneaked out of the church premises on the eve of the bulldozing,” Rwamasirabo said.“When I returned the next morning, I found the church surrounded by gendermes (equivalent to state police) soldiers and militias. I hid in a nearby bush and watched the massacres unfold,” says the man, who is currently caretaker at the church. Wife, nine children in rubble Rwamasirabo survived but his wife and nine children did not. It is this that partly motivates him to be the custodian of the memorial site, so that he “keeps a close eye on my family” that was killed as he helplessly looked on.Rwamasirabo said the gendermes first used explosives to blow the church in vain, while Seromba, who had baptised the children trapped them inside the church, as well as people to whom he preached every Sunday.“During the killings of 1973, the killers spared those who had sought refuge at the same church. I took my wife and nine children, thinking the same would happen in 1994,” said Rwamasirabo, as he narrated how him and his family ended up at the church.Reports from several other survivors indicate that Seromba himself told the driver of the bulldozer to raze the church.“The driver was hesitant but Seromba insisted, claiming that “demons had conquered the church, and there was need to destroy it,” Rwamasirabo said.The Nyange Church measured 55 by 19 metres. But on April 16, between 10am and 5pm, a bulldozer had demolished the building’s walls and tower, all of which crumbled and killed everyone under its roof.Epaphrodite Hakunzimana, another survivor of Ngororero, lived near Nyange Church, and at the height of the Genocide, he took his wife, children and his father to the church to join other Tutsis who had sought refuge there. The militia had just burnt down his house.“As we approached the church, we found the road blocked. Suddenly, we were surrounded by a militia. My father was thrown in a nearby pit-latrine, alive. My wife and children were buried in another manhole, also alive,” Hakunzimana said.“ I fled and ended up in Bugesera District. When I returned, I found everyone killed,” he added.Osée Twayigize, one of the organisers of the commemoration activities in Ngororero District, also narrated the Nyange Church ordeal.“It shows how cruel mankind can be. As we commemorate the Genocide, we have to emphasise the Never Again cause,” he said.Like many other sites in Rwanda, the case of Nyange Church has attracted many scholars writing about the role of the Catholic Church in the Genocide against the Tutsi.

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Seromba, the priest who rolled a bulldozer on his congregation