Genocide fugitive discovered working as a priest in Italy

Barely a month after unearthing an alleged mastermind of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, human rights watchdog, Africa Rights, last night released yet another report on a Catholic priest accused of organising the death of students in the Southern Province. According to the nine-page report, Fr. Emmanuel Uwayezu, who is now a vicar at a parish in Empoli, a small city about 20 kilometres to the west of Florence in Italy, is responsible for the death of 80 Students at the Kibeho College of Arts in the Southern Province, on 7 May 1994. This comes after the rights group released a detailed report on Vincent Nzigiyimfura, a businessman who is currently established in Malawi also accused of having spearheaded killings of Tutsi in Nyanza, also in the Southern Province. The latest report was released to coincide with the 15 commemoration of the massacres at the school which took place on May 7 1994. “African Rights is calling on the authorities in Italy and in Rwanda, and on the Catholic Church in Rwanda and in Italy, to carry out their own investigations into the serious charges contained in this report,” reads the report called Father Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy: The Massacre of His Students at Kibeho College of Arts, 7 May 1994. The report accuses Uwayezu, who it says has ‘modified’ his names to Emmanuel Mihigo Wayezu, hatched hatred among the students at the school to which he had been headmaster two years in the run up to the Genocide. The 80 students African Rights says died because the director of their school, Father Emmanuel Uwayezu, abandoned them and laid the groundwork for the massacres by inviting Gendarmes (who worked as policemen then) who later killed them. The report accuses the priest of being seen, throughout the Genocide, in the company of some of the virulent masterminds of the Genocide, including the then prefet of Gikongoro, Laurent Bucyibaruta. Together with Bucyibaruta, the report alleges, Uwayezu frequently gave assurances to the students that nothing would happen to them but later turned and sent militias to kill them. Uwayezu becomes a second catholic priest, suspected of participating in the Genocide, to be found living in Italy after Athanase Seromba, who was also practicing priesthood in the same region of Florence. Seromba has since been sentenced to life in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for his role in the killing of thousands of members of his congregation who had taken refuge at Nyange Parish where he was the vicar. Ends

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Genocide fugitive discovered working as a priest in Italy