Rabat - King Mohammed VI visited, on Thursday in Gisozi (Kigali suburbs), the memorial commemorating the victims of the Rwandan genocide which claimed the lives of one million people in 1994.
Rabat – King Mohammed VI visited, on Thursday in Gisozi (Kigali suburbs), the memorial commemorating the victims of the Rwandan genocide which claimed the lives of one million people in 1994.
Upon his arrival at the Memorial site, the sovereign was greeted by Julienne Uwacu, Rwandan minister of sports and culture, Jean Damascène Bizimana, executive secretary of the national committee for the fight against genocide, and the Memorial manager Honoré Gatera. Afterwards, HM the King placed a spray of flowers on one of the common graves where the remains of millions of the genocide’s victims are buried, and observed a moment of silence for the deceased’s souls.
Inaugurated in April 2004, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, the Gisozi memorial includes three permanent exhibitions explaining the tragedy’s circumstances, reasons behind the growing tension between the country’s ethnic groups, what triggered the genocide and how it took place.
King Mohammed VI arrived on Wednseday afternoon in Rwanda to pay hs first official visit to this important country in East Africa. The visit of the Moroccan monarch comes four months after the official visit of Rwanda’s President to Morocco in June. The Rwandan press has praised King Mohammed VI’s first visit to Rwanda since his crononation in 1999.