French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday Monday visited the Kigali genocide memorial site located at Gisozi, a hill overlooking the Rwandan capital city Kigali to pay tribute to the victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group.
The memorial in the Rwandan capital Kigali is a resting place for more than 250,000 victims of the genocide in which about 1 million people, mostly Tutsi and moderate Hutus, were killed in a period of 100 days in 1994.
Mr Le Drian arrived in Rwanda over the weekend to attend the African and European ministerial EU-AU summit which took place in Kigali from 25 to 26 October.
The EU is one of the main contributors to the international solidarity initiative.
During the official visit to Rwanda in May this year, French President Emmanuel Macron has asked Rwandans to forgive France for its role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which about more than one million ethnic Tutsis mainly were killed.
Speaking at the genocide memorial in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, the French leader said France had not heeded warnings of impending carnage and had for too long “valued silence over examination of the truth”.
In March, a French expert commission found that France under the late President François Mitterrand had borne “heavy and overwhelming responsibility” for the genocide but had not been complicit. The report said France had been “blind” to genocide preparations.
CU/abj/APA