Rwandans honour Genocide victims dumped in rivers

Rwandans living in Uganda on Saturday thronged Ggolo and Lambu Memorial sites in Uganda to pay tribute to thousands of Genocide victims buried there.

Sunday, June 08, 2014
Mourners lay wreaths at Lambu memorial site in Masaka District on Saturday. Courtesy.

Rwandans living in Uganda on Saturday thronged Ggolo and Lambu Memorial sites in Uganda to pay tribute to thousands of Genocide victims buried there.

Ggolo and Lambu in Mpigi and Masaka districts respectively are homes to over 7,000 victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The third memorial site is in Kasensero in Rakai District.

The bodies of the victims were dumped in different rivers across Rwanda during the Genocide and ended up on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda.

A big delegation of members of Humura, an organisation of Genocide survivors in Rwanda, joined the mourners who were led by Rwanda’s High Commissioner to Uganda, Frank Mugambage.

"These Genocide sites are permanent reminders to the present and future generations that genocide is bad and we should all make sure that it never happens again,” Mugambage said.

He called for more efforts in denouncing genocide ideology, adding that revisionists will be defeated wherever they are by all peace loving people.

The president of Humura, Alfred Rudodo, said 95 per cent of the Genocide victims buried in the three sites were people who resided along the banks of River Nyabarongo.

"We must remember the victims because the moment we forget, we shall have lost our value as Rwandans,” he said.

Different speakers commended Mahamood Noordin Thobani, a Ugandan businessman who donated the land on which the site is established.

Thobani asked the mourners to keep praying for the souls of the Genocide victims.

The visit to Ggolo and Lambu Genocide memorial sites is among several commemoration activities that Rwandans in Uganda have held in line with Kwibuka20.