We know that today is going to be an emotionally heavy day and we use the hour long bus ride to prepare ourselves for it. Our destination is the Murambi Genocide Memorial Center. This place was originally being built as a technical school, it has many classrooms, buildings, green spaces and areas for would be students to hang out. It was never used as a school.

We meet our guide and he takes the time to explain what we are about to see. He gives us a very interesting and informative explanation about what happened, specifically here in Murambi. Over 40000 people were murdered in this small space in less than 24 hours.

The victims were told that they would be safe and protected on these grounds. People flocked here for days, certain of their safety. This was a lie. As soon as they had everyone possible gathered, the Hutu ‘army’ came in and slaughtered all of them. Grenades were thrown into classrooms, guns were fired endlessly, machetes, hoes and home-made weapons were used to finish off any remaining survivors. Only a handful of people made it out alive.

It took the killers four days to hide all the bodies in large mass graves dug by bulldozers. Imagine. 24 hours to kill 40000 people, 4 days to clean up. The only reason they hid the bodies was because they knew there were some international news outlets nearby and they didn’t want the world to know the extent of what was happening. Obviously these murderers knew what they were doing was wrong and horrendous. But it didn’t stop them from continuing on. Disgusting.

The museum itself has a very good description of how the genocide came to be. It did not happen overnight. The seeds of genocide were planted as far back as 1959, but the division of us vs them happened in the 1930’s with the Belgian colonization. Before this time, the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa lived in harmony. As we walked through the museum, learning about the before, during and after, we came upon a room filled with pictures of children. A small percentage of the children killed here. It was awful.

After the museum section, our guide met us again to walk the grounds and teach us even more. We saw one of the mass graves that volunteers have since emptied to give the victims proper burials. It is believed that about 12 mass graves were dug; experts and citizens have worked very hard to identify the bodies through any means possible. Unfortunately, the bodies are so badly decomposed, it is very difficult. Sometimes, they must rely on personal accounts from the killers themselves. As it stands now, there are only 4000 names on the memorial stones, less than 10% of the bodies actually buried there.

The classroom buildings have been transformed into memorial/display rooms. One room is filled with the clothing recovered from the graves. Most of the clothing was stolen by the killers so there is very little remaining. And even still, it filled a room. Some handmade weapons are also laid out. Not to honour the killers, but to show the brutality of what happened here. One must never forget.

After this room, were many, many more rooms filled with bodies preserved in lime. Actual victims. A physical reminder of the lives that were cut short, violently, horrifically, senselessly. The purpose of this is to make sure that people neither forget nor deny the horror of what happened here. It was hard to see, these are people. Real people with real lives. Men, women, children, babies. No one was spared. We visited each and every room to pay our respects to all of those fallen. They will be remembered and honoured.

One of the saddest parts to reconcile is that most of the killers, the leaders and followers alike, are living a life of peace. They have not been tried. They are living a protected life in exile in many different countries – Canada being one of them. There are names of these people on stone slabs, behind bars. A symbolic punishment for their crimes. Moving, but not enough. Never enough.

This genocide did not happen in a vacuum. There were people in high positions trying to get the word out, begging for help. The world turned its back. Some western countries are more at fault than others, but in the end, the world as a whole failed. I am not here to give a history lesson and we encourage you to read up on this history on your own. Draw your own conclusions.

At the end of this visit, we arrived at the final resting place for about 50000 victims: 40000 from the school and 10000 from the surrounding areas. Margaret had thoughtfully planned ahead and purchased a memorial bouquet of flowers. Another member of our group spoke a few words of remembrance as we paid our respects with a moment of silence.

Needless to say, our drive back to Kigali was quiet and reflective as we, once again, absorbed the experience we had today.