KWIBUKA24:
REMEMBER-UNITE-RENEW
T
he High Commission of Rwanda in
New Delhi, India, in collaboration
with the Dean of African Heads
of Missions and UN Information Centre
for India and Bhutan organised the 24th
Commemoration of the Genocide against
Tutsi in Nkwame Nkurmah Memorial Hall
at the High Commission of Ghana on 10th
April 2018.
The commemoration ceremony started
with candle lighting presided by H.E. Ernest
Rwamucyo, High Commissioner of Rwanda
to India as a symbolic way to remember those
who were cruelly killed.
Kwibuka means ‘remember’ in
Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s language. It
designates the annual commemoration of the
1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Each year’s
commemoration activities are steered by a
theme and this year’s theme is: “Remember-
Unite-Renew”.
“We should all recall what happened in
Rwanda in 1994 in order to learn lessons so
as to shun such disasters. We should unite
in order to pay our regards to those who
lost their lives and offer our solidarity to the
survivors. We should renew our promise to our
earnest affi rmation that never again shall such
misfortune return in Africa and elsewhere in
the world,” said the Rwandan envoy.
In a shocking incident, when Juvénal
Habyarimana, President of Rwanda was
returning from a conference in Tanzania
on April 6, 1994, a surface-to-air missile
shot his plane out of the sky over Rwanda's
capital city of Kigali and all on board were
killed in the crash.
For a continuous four months (from April
to July 1994), over 1 million people, most of
the Tutsi minority, were brutally murdered
by the members of the Hutu ethnic majority.
Initiated by ferocious Hutu nationalists in
Kigali, the genocide blow-out throughout the
nation with shocking speed and ruthlessness,
as ordinary citizens were goaded by local
offi cials and the Hutu Power government to
take up arms against their neighbours.
The Rwanda Genocide ended only when
the RPF took over the country. The RPF
(Rwandan Patriotic Front) was a trained
military group comprising of Tutsis who
had been evacuated in earlier years, many
of whom lived in Uganda.
The RPF was finally able to enter
Rwanda and gradually take over the country.
In mid-July 1994, when the RPF had full
control of the situation, the genocide was
ultimately stopped.
2018 • RWANDA • 31