On April 11 1994, Belgian troops under the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Rwanda (UNMIR) withdrew from the ETO school in Kicukiro in Rwanda’s capital Kigali, abandoning thousands Tutsi from the area who had sought safety at a UN base. This was during the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda.
As they sped off, the peacekeepers fired in the air to scare off any Tutsi that attempted to hang on to their trucks. The Interahamwe who had surrounded the school for days immediately started killing those at the school and marched the rest up the hill to Nyanza-Kicukiro where they massacred most them.
On April 11, every year, a memorial ceremony is held at Nyanza Memorial site, where over 10,500 genocide victims are laid to rest. They include those killed in the area and others from École Technique Officielle (ETO) Kicukiro, murdered in cold blood, when the UN troops abandoned helpless Tutsi in the hands of merciless Interahamwe militia
As Rwanda commemorates the 30th anniversary of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, today, Rwandans and friends marched to Nyanza ya Kicukiro, to mourn and honour thousands of victims lying at their resting place.
