Murambi Genocide Memorial Center-Rwanda, Murambi genocide memorial is deliberate and is defended officially as serving to prevent genocide in Rwanda, historical background of Murambi genocide. What happened at Murambi during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 was, as the genocide was unfolding, Tutsis all over the country tried to seek refuge in churches and schools, including at the nearby parish/church of Gikongoro.
At the soon overcrowded place, the refugees were then told (even by a bishop) to move on to a new school complex on the hillside at Murambi (the construction work had not quite been finished, so the school was not yet in use). As so often, however, this turned out to be just a ploy to assemble large numbers of Tutsis in a place where they could more easily be massacred.
Killers first arrived, on 18 April, the masses of people crowded into the school in Murambi were at first able to fend them off e.g. by throwing stones – but basically, there were just too many of them, though this safety in numbers proved to be only temporary. Many people were killed during those initial attacks.
But on the morning of 21 April, the killers came back in force, and with soldiers wielding guns and grenades. They encircled the compound and began mowing the Tutsis down. Within a few hours they had slaughtered virtually everybody, then they went around looting and finishing off any wounded who were not yet dead. The numbers given for the total death toll at Murambi vary widely, usually between 25,000 and 76,000. It’s hard to ascertain.
Things are changing at these memorial sites in Rwanda, and Murambi is no exception, it has arguably changed the most since it was first conceived in 1996, and the developments are not over yet, lots of construction and/or maintenance work is going on in various parts of the country
The exhibition has meanwhile officially been opened, in May 2011. It is bound to be a valuable addition to the Murambi memorial site in Rwanda as a whole.
