Rwanda mass grave dug up

2004-04-05 15:04

Kigali - Three days before a major ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of Rwanda's genocide, men and women gathered around a large hole between two houses to remove the remains of their loved ones from a mass grave and give them a proper burial.

Wearing surgical masks and gloves, men climbed down to the bottom of the square hole, about four metres deep.

They carefully lifted the remains of several dozen people massacred in 1994 here in the Nyamirambo district of the capital Kigali.

"We are disinterring the remains of our loved ones to bury them at the Gisozi memorial" in Kigali, explained Mathilde Uwanyirigira, one of those helping at the mass grave.

On Wednesday, the main day of the genocide commemoration, remains gathered from several mass graves in the capital will be buried in coffins at a new memorial in Kigali, on Gisozi hill.

Some 250 000 people were killed in Kigali during 1994's orchestrated slaughter.

Some 800 000 people, according to the United Nations - even a million, according to the current government - were killed over the course of 100 days in Rwanda that year.

"I'd rather they were at Gisozi, at least they will have a dignified grave," said Mathilde.

The rest of her family was killed in June 1994 in Nyamirambo Roman Catholic Church. The bodies were burnt by Hutu militiamen before being thrown into the mass grave, which residents say contains the remains of between 200 and 300 people.

On Sunday, many people gathered for the grisly task of trying to identify some of the dead.

After removing muddy and charred bones and skulls and rotten clothing, the relatives searched for clues.

One young woman tried to make out the writing on an identity card, only a couple of words on which were still legible after a decade in the ground.

"See that man? He has identified his wife from her dentures," murmured Mathilde, who, like everyone else at the site, was overcome by the emotion of the moment.

Antoine Twahirwa, a young student who was just nine-years-old at the time of the massacres, moved away from the mass grave to compose himself.

He had found the remains of his mother and his sister in the hole.

"I recognised their clothes," he said after taking a few photographs.

"This is a very difficult time, but my family deserves to be buried somewhere where the memory will never fade," he said.

"With the development of Kigali, a building is bound to go up here, in which case the remains of our loved ones would be lost forever," he said in a low voice, as if not to disturb the dead.

- AFP