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A free day on the tour so we took the opportunity, along with half ourgroup, for a day trip to Rwanda. It was 19 years almost to the day since the country was torn apart by the Interahamwe militia group. We visited the genocide museum which had a comprehensive coverage of the events leading up the problems then all the bloodshed. Of course reading and hearing peoples first hand accounts was horrible but the museum didn't try to be too emotive. Instead it relied on facts and trying to bring Rwanda back together as a country. A short drive took us to the Kigali memorial church. Here many thousands of people tried to seek refuge from the fighting believing the militia would not attack a place of worship. They were wrong, locked inside the confined space of the church just made themselves easy targets. The church has not been renovated since that day. The concrete and the front door are still damaged from the grenades used to blast in. The walls are peppered with bullet holes. The clothes of those who died have been placed in piles on the pews. Underneath the church has been dug out for a mass grave, many of the bones can be viewed on the tour.
We then had delicious buffet lunch at Hotel des Mille Collines which features in the movie Hotel Rwanda. In 1994 when the foriegner manager left a local took charge and used the hotel to hide 1000 refugees. He was initially protected by the UN but they left. He then bribed the militia to buy time and the police for protection. Eventually the UN did move the the refugees to a safe area of the country. In total over 1 million people were killed in the masacre. Although this is known as a genocide by the Hutu against the Tutsis the killing was quite indiscriminate. 700,000 Tutsi, 300,000 Twa (Pygmy) and 120,000 Hutu were killed in 100 days. That is 400 people every hour the River is said to have been flowing red with blood.
These days Kigali seems to be a thriving, peaceful and safe city. Outside of South Africa it was probably the most developed city we visited. We suspect that the west, with its guilty conscience of withdrawing and allowing the genocide, have provided a great deal of aid.
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