More than 1,000 corpses will be buried at the Mibilizi genocide memorial site in Rwanda on June 3. The bodies of 1,238 victims of the 1994 mass killings recently were exhumed from church-owned land, and according to a Catholic priest and diocesan official in Rwanda, the discovery of the cache of remains means the route to reconciliation is still long.
Father Théogène Ngoboka, Director of the Justice and Peace Commission of Cyangugu Dio-cese, carries out pastoral work in Rusizi prison, which has 3,850 inmates, of whom 1,300 are incarcerated for genocide.
“It is very deplorable, but it is our sad reality,” Ngoboka said of the newly discovered mass graves.
“During the genocide, bodies were thrown here and there. It is not surprising that bodies can still be found today, but what is very shocking is the high number of bodies that have been found in mass graves that were not reveal-ed until now. This shows that there is still a long way to go in the process of unity and recon-ciliation,” he told.
The remains of at least 1000 more victims of genocide were exhumed from church land in Gashonga village recently. How did you receive that news, and what does that tell you about the scale of the killings that took place some 29 years ago?