Rwandan officials are set to resume talks with UN officials to assess how four of the largest memorial sites of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis be granted the UNESCO World Heritage status, a source confirmed Sunday to APA in Kigali.
The concerned sites including Gisozi (Kigali), Nyamata (East), Bisesero (West) and Murambi (South)
According to the Rwandan government, the four sites have been placed on what has been called the ‘tentative list’, suggesting there are high chances they could be selected.
The Gisozi site is famously known globally as the Kigali genocide memorial site where some 300,000 victims are laid to rest on a hill overlooking Kigali.
The Murambi site in southern Rwanda where French troops based there splashed lime into mass graves where some 45,000 Tutsis had been dumped.
Murambi was a technical school that turned into a slaughter ground.
As for Nyamata site, located some 30km outside Kigali, is where up to 30,000 Tutsis were left for dead by genocide militias using bombs, guns and machetes. Before the massacre, the site was a catholic church.
But within a few days, the tens of thousands that had sought refuge there were no more.
Inside the Nyamata complex, there are clothes belonging to the victims and many other personal belongings – all of which show human brutality, mass rape, brutalization of women and the use of HIV as a deliberate weapon of genocide.
As for the Bisesero site in western Rwanda, is where at least 30,000 victims perished.
Tens of thousands of Tutsis sought refuge at this location because it was up in the hills believing they had escaped the militia.
They were regularly attacked by thousands of then Interahamwe militias with reinforcements from the French military based in the area at the time.
Despite fighting back with stones and sticks, they could not hold back the fire power of the government militia forces.
CU/as/APA