Murambi Memorial Centre gets facelift

NYAMAGABE - The Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre, one of the five Genocide memorial centres identified by the National Commission against Genocide as national memorial sites is undergoing renovation with support from the Aegis Trust and other partners. Emmanuel Nshimyimana, an official at the centre told The New Times that the work includes renovating eight mass graves. “The mass graves were in poor shape, we have since completed refurbishing them, a reburial ceremony of the remains of Genocide victims is planned for early next month,” said Nshimyimana. With support from the UK based Aegis Trust, an organization that actively seeks the prevention of Genocide world wide, an exhibition centre is being set up at the memorial to document how genocide was committed in Murambi. Nshimyimana said that one of the main challenges being faced in implementing the project is the difficulty of finding survivors of genocide in the area. “It is difficult to find people who survived genocide from here, many of those who escaped the killings here ended up at Cyanika parish from where they did not manage to escape from the hands of the killers,” he said. Over 50,000 Tutsis are believed to have been killed at what was meant to be a technical school in Murambi. Emmanuel Murangira, one of the survivors of Murambi told The New Times that Tutsis were lured into the technical school by the then local leaders where they were promised protection. In response to this call, thousands left their hiding places and gathered at the school where they were mercilessly killed on the night of April 21. “Grenades were hurled at us. There was shooting all over. Women and children could be heard wailing, it was a terrible sight,” Murangira said in a recent interview. Over 800 bodies have been preserved in lime as memory of the atrocious crime against humanity. The National Commission against Genocide, in partnership with researchers from the Cranfield forensic Institute, Cranfield University, is researching on modern ways of preserving some of the remains. Ends