Greetings of peace and blessing from URI-Africa.
Here I am in Kigali, Rwanda to foster a working partnership with Aegis Trust. Aegis Trust is an international organization working to prevent genocide and crimes against humanity. Launched in 2000, Aegis developed from the work of the UK Holocaust Centre and has offices in London, UK and Kigali, Rwanda, where it is has been responsible for the Kigali Genocide Memorial since it opened in 2004.
During my working tour, which portrays the history of the genocide in Rwanda, I visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre and laid flowers on behalf of URI members from all over the world at the mass graves where over 250,000 victims of the 1994 genocide lie buried, and observed a minute of silence in memory of the million dead.
This memorial center is one of six major centers in Rwanda that commemorate the Rwanda Genocide. The remains of the people here were brought from all over the capital after they had been left in the street or thrown in the river. They are buried together in lots of 100,000. The memorial was opened in 1999.
The center here started when Kigali City Council and the Rwandan National Commission for the Fight against Genocide commissioned Aegis Trust to establish the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. It was opened in April 2004, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the start of the Rwanda Genocide.
May our world never witness again such human atrocities.
May Peace Prevail on Earth.
In peace and gratitude,
Mussie Hailu, URI African Continental Coordinator & URI Representative at the African Union Commission and UN Office in Africa
A message from Chris Ogbonna, Dialogue, Reconciliation and Peace Center (DREP)Cooperation Circle:
I still recall the emotions I had on my visit to the Kigali Genocide memorial and the Memorial at Nyamata.
The moment I stepped into those memorials, I realised that we should do more to prevent any reoccurrence not just in Rwanda but across the globe.
That singular experience ignited my passion for trauma healing/psychosocial support and peace building with victims of mass atrocities, especially the situation we have in Nigeria, occasioned by the Boko Haram insurgency in parts of the Northeast.
I pray we never witness any such mass atrocity against humanity again.
Peace and blessings.
