Remains of over 200 Rwanda genocide victims exhumed from church land

By James Tasamba

KIGALI, Rwanda (AA) – Rwandans exhumed the remains of more than 200 victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi community in Rusizi, a district in western Rwanda, an official of IBUKA, an umbrella organization of genocide survivors associations, said on Friday.

The remains are among those of hundreds of victims exhumed after a search was launched last month on farmland belonging to a local church in Gashonga village.

The victims are said to have been members of the Tutsi community who sought refuge at Mibilizi church during the genocide.

“Remains of at least 223 more victims were exhumed on Thursday....this brings the number of victims whose remains have been exhumed since the search started in March to 811,” Vestine Utamuriza of IBUKA told Anadolu.

"The remains were exhumed 70 centimeters deep... the victims were stripped naked and bundled together," she said.

The ongoing search was ordered by district authorities on March 23 after locals working on a terracing project aimed at improving farm yields in Gashonga village discovered the first remains.

Utamuriza appealed to genocide perpetrators to volunteer information on where they dumped the bodies of their victims in order to give them a proper burial.

Local leaders said a commemoration event originally scheduled for April 30 in the area has been postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing search for genocide remains.

Rwanda has been commemorating the 29th anniversary of the Tutsi ethnic group's genocide since April 7.

Remembrance ceremonies are being held countrywide until July 4 to honor thousands of people killed in a span of 100 days.

During the massacre, Hutu extremists killed approximately one million people, the majority of whom were Tutsi and moderate Hutus.