Rwandans living in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Saturday, June 27 marked the 26th commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The ceremony was held in the City of Dubai, in adherence to Covid-19 preventive measures such as self-distancing, and attracted speakers from Rwanda including Prof. Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, the president of Ibuka, the umbrella body of Genocide survivors’ associations. Apart from the staff members of both the embassy and the consulate and leaders of the Rwandan community in the Gulf Nation, the rest of the people followed the ceremony virtually. The ceremony kicked-off with a minute of silence in honor of the over a million victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and followed by traditional lighting of candles. In his remarks, Emmanuel Hategeka, the Ambassador of Rwanda to the UAE expressed solidarity with survivors, praised the resilience of Rwandans and called for keeping associating remembrance to unity and socio-economic development in line with the commemoration theme “Remember-Unite-Renew.” Hategeka also emphasized the need for every Rwandan to preserve what the country achieved, adding that “this should go hand in hand with fighting against genocide ideology and denial.” In his remarks, Dusingizemungu emphasized on the essence of resilience by genocide survivors. “Survivors’ resilience is at the center of the unity and reconciliation process,” he said, and went further to commend the determination by survivors to building a lasting peaceful nation for all. Each year on April 7, Rwanda begins 100 days of commemorating the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi that claimed lives of over one million victims. As previously announced by the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide (CNLG), as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, this time most commemoration programmes were held virtually with social media and traditional media platform being used as the main avenues.
