Nyarubuye church

Pristine and clean, this large brick church extends upward towards the blue skies of Rwanda. Approximately 20,000 people sought refugee here in 1994. Many of them were fleeing to Tanzania, which is only a few kilometers away. They were murdered within a few days in mid-April.

The mayor of the district, Sylvestre Gacumbitsi, played a major role here. He led the attack personally, distributing weapons and using a megaphone to call on the mob to engage in rape and murder. The International Criminal Tribunal later sentenced him to life in prison Nothing in the renovated church in the Rusumo community suggests that it had been filled with corpses in 1994. But the remains of the massacres can be seen in the cloister behind it: Cloth items and shoes from the victims, human bones piled up by size, skulls on table-like shelves in which the cracks and holes caused by machetes are still visible. Murder instruments are also displayed in the memorial, including sharp sticks that are believed to have been thrust from below through the bodies of pregnant women.