Construction of Bugesera International Airport started three months ago. No one expected bodies of Genocide victims could be found at the site
After twenty two years of hurtful feelings for losing family members during the genocide against Tutsi, Xavier Twahirwa will be relieved after locating some of the bodies.
As construction works continue in Gatare village at a site hosting the new Bugesera International Airport, excavation machines on January 12 at 13h00 suddenly exhumed two bodies of people believed to be victims of the1994 Genocide against Tutsi.
However, when workers allowed neighbours into the site to help identify the victims; Twahirwa – genocide survivor noticed that some of the interred clothes were of his late mother Agnes Kambuguje and her grandchild. Both were killed during the genocide.
The bodies were exhumed from a plot of an Adventist church which paved way for the construction of the airport now at initial stage.
According to Gaspard Gasirabo, Executive Secretary of Rilima sector, the bodies will be accorded a descent burial at the genocide memorial site at Rilima sector.
Over a million lives were lost during the 1994 genocide against Tutsi between April and July.
Ibuka, the umbrella of Genocide survivors’ association estimates that in former Kigali Ngali Prefecture where Bugesera is located, about 200,000 Tutsi were killed.
The prefecture comes among the top five where many Tutsi were killed.
Genocide in Bugesera was even worse, and this has an explanation. In the 1960s, Tutsi were cursed to this region, allegedly to die from a deadly fly, Tsé Tsé.
In 1992, Genocide would also be tried in Bugesera costing many lives of Tutsi, and an expatriate humanitarian Tonia Locatelli who wanted to save them.
Over 200 genocide survivors and perpetrators were, last week in Nyamata, Bugesera district, brought together in a reconciliation session.
