Prince Charles toured Nyamata Genocide Memorial and wrote a message in their remembrance.
Today, Prince Charles met genocide survivors and perpetrators of Mbyo Reconciliation Village ahead of a summit of Commonwealth leaders this week in Kigali.
This Wednesday afternoon, Prince Charles visited residents of Mbyo Reconciliation Village located in Mayange Sector, Mbyo Cell, Rwimikoni village in Bugesera District.
In 1994, ethnic Hutu extremists slaughtered more than one million of members of the Tutsi community. Mbyo Reconciliation Village is where perpetrators and victims, murderers and survivors, Hutus and Tutsis, are neighbors; where victims and perpetrators talk about their experiences, their feelings, and emotions.
“Both perpetrators and victims have moving and painful testimonies of the 1994 Genocide. Reconciliation villages, such as Mbyo, help to build the resilience needed for Rwanda to leave the past in history and for communities to live together”, says Prince Charles after visiting Mbyo Reconciliation Village.
The genocide did not only take human lives, but it also destroyed the livelihoods of many families. Victims could not return to their villages. Perpetrators who have been in prison did not have a place to go, so officials created six Reconciliation Villages including Mbyo where 60 families are living together currently.
Prison Fellowship Rwanda- a nonprofit organization started with 15 houses to see if they could live together and it worked and since then it supports the villagers.
On the way to the Reconciliation Village in Bugesera District, Prince Charles toured Nyamata Genocide Memorial site to pay respect to over 45 thousand victims of the Genocide against the Tutsi and wrote a message in their remembrance.
In the 1994 Genocide, about 10,000 people gathered at the Nyamata Church as it was considered a place of safety. The Church has now been converted into one of Rwanda’s six national memorial sites, with over 45,000 victims buried in the grounds.
Prince Charles is representing the Queen Elizabeth, the head of the Commonwealth, at the summit of Commonwealth leaders, which was postponed in 2021 and 2020 because of the pandemic. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has confirmed that he will also travel to Rwanda to attend the summit. (End)