Murambi Memorial Site

Two weeks into training, I visited the Murambi Genocide Memorial Site, in the Southern Province of Rwanda. This Memorial Site is particularly important because of the mass graves once located there.

The 1994 genocide that took place in Rwanda killed over 800,000 people in just three months, over one million throughout the whole year. Many scholars have described this genocide as particularly atrocious (I can’t imagine a genocide ever not being that way). One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Rwandan genocide was the physical and emotional proximity of victims and perpetrators. Women recognized the men that raped them. Lifelong neighbors did not just turning each other in; they actually killed each other.

The effects: physical, economic, mental, and emotional are present everywhere in Rwanda even today.

Much has been written and reported about the genocide. Notably the movie Hotel Rwanda inspired by the movie We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch. Frontline has done two series on the genocide, Ghosts of Rwanda and also The Triumph of Evil. The websites include a lot of good information about the United States’ involvement, or lack there of. 

The Murambi Genocide Memorial Site is where over 50,000 Tutsi were massacred in less than twenty-four hours. In April 1994, the regional government told all Tutsi people to gather on the hill, where an empty would-be high school was being constructed. Innocent families fled there, thinking they would be protected. Most of the refugees arrived around April 9. By April 12 all water to the area was cut off, and access was completely restricted. Interhamwe (trained militia) guarded the surrounding fields and watched from the neighboring hills to make sure no one left.

On the night of April 19^th, soldiers and people from the neighboring villages came with guns, machetes, and clubs to kill everyone. The next day, the Governor of the region thanked and congratulated the killers for a “job well done”. He encouraged the men to move on to neighboring churches, where many Tutsi were still seeking refuge.

In July French soldiers came to Murambi to secure peace as part of Operation Turquoise. According to our guide, there were obvious signs that genocide had taken place only months before, including unclosed mass graves. At Murambi I was told the French soldiers closed up the graves, and set up volleyball court less than ten feet away.

One of the graves (where over 1,000 people were buried) was so deep that oxygen did not infiltrate, and when it was reopened over a year later many of the bodies had not fully decomposed. These bodies are preserved today in limestone to remind us of the horrors that occurred.

I saw six schoolrooms full of bodies. Most were the bodies of women and children. The fear and agony experienced by those who died was still painfully present. The distorted body of a small child who had a club smashed into his head lay next to the body of his mother, whose left arm was still positioned in a way that showed how she tried to protect her son until death.

As I walked out of one of the rooms, I noticed some children playing in the grass only a couple yards away. The contrast between the pain and terror I had just seen inside and the beautiful Rwandan countryside where these children were playing was almost too much for me to handle.

Before visiting Murambi, Peace Corps organized a guest speaker to come talk to us about the history of the genocide. After the presentation I felt somewhat more informed about particular events leading up to the genocide and potential theories of what caused it, but I was frustrated the presenter had not spoken about the effects of the genocide on individuals in Rwanda today. Only after Murambi did I understand trying to generalize or even stipulate the attitudes an entire population on such horrific events would be absolutely impossible.