The renowned Nyange Secondary School students, who stood united as Rwandans when the Interahamwe militiamen ordered them to identify themselves along ethnic lines, are the highest example of “genocide never again” reality, people who spoke to The New Times said. When Interahamwe militiamen attacked their school on March 18, 1997, in Western Province’s Ngororero District, they targeted to identify and kill Tutsi students, according to accounts from the attack survivors. They said that they were told by those militiamen to be divided into two groups – one for the Tutsi and the other for Hutu. The students in question were in senior five and six. Both classrooms had a total of 47 students. By the end of the attack on the night of March 18, 1997, six students lay dead – after the militiamen threw grenades among them as they refused to separate – while two others died later. Those students are among the national heroes that Rwanda honours on February 1. Nyange (students) heroes are classified in Imena – a category of heroes reputed for extraordinary acts characterised by supreme sacrifice, high importance, and example. READ ALSO: 25 years later, Nyange remembers gruesome attack, student heroes Naphtal Ahishakiye, Executive Secretary of Ibuka – an umbrella organisation bringing together Genocide survivors' associations – told The New Times that the lesson the youth can draw from the Nyange students is to understand what is right quickly, and embrace it in their daily practices, while shunning the evil. “Those young people (students) from Nyange Secondary School got a unity message within a short period of less than five years, after the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) liberated this country [on July 4, 1994],” he said. “Before, the youth was fed with divisionism from colonial period to 1994 before the Genocide against the Tutsi was stopped, but they made, within a short period, a laudable decision that broke the chains of ethnic divisionism and embraced Rwandan identity and unity,” he said, indicating that they even risking their lives instead of protecting selfish interests. He said that the Nyange students’ heroic deed in 1997, implies that anyone who might still hold ethnic divisionism, or harbour genocide ideology about 29 years after the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, should understand that this is deplorable. On the students' refusal to separate on ethnic grounds, it is an evidence of never again to genocide, standing against those who planned the Genocide, and who indoctrinated the youth in divisionism. “It is a confirmation that the genocide recurrence is not possible, that genocide ideology is declining. It is something gratifying for Rwandans, and anyone who works to protect human rights,” Ahishakiye observed. Nicolas Rwaka, Director of Research at the Chancellery for Heroes, National Orders and Decorations of Honour (CHENO), told The New Times that the major lesson that the youth should get from the Nyange students is the unity of Rwandans, and the unbeatable force that results from it. “This is a major lesson that we should all embrace the unity and solidarity of Rwandans, that there should be no divisionism regardless of any grounds, be it ethnicity, region, length, size or education, among others, rather, we should join efforts to pull together as Rwandans,” he said. MP Clarisse Imaniriho, youth representative at the Chamber of Deputies told The New Times that “the celebration of the Heroes’ Day is a good occasion to reflect on the heroism that characterised Rwandans such that we now have a country”. Referring to the Nyange heroes, she said that they remind the young generation that “being a hero is strived for, and requires forgoing selfishness, rather endeavor to achieve what benefits all Rwandans, having the courage to shun the evil, and endorsing what is right and constructive.”
