Camp Beligian Monument In Kigali Rwanda
Camp Beligian Monument In Kigali Rwanda : Camp Belgian monument is located within Nyarugenge in Kigali City where about a million Tutsi and so-called moderate Hutu and peacekeepers of the United Nations totaling to 14 members met a grisly end to their lives. These were massacred during the early days of the poignant 1994 Rwanda genocide. The peacekeepers served the command of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) and all were Belgians.
This is found on the grounds of what used to be a military camp where the violence took place and it is consists of a building with three rooms and a small garden of stones and pillars. The memorial was established by the Belgian Government and unveiled on 7th April 2000 – six years after the massacres.
For each soldier that died, there is a pillar for commemoration and every horizontal notch on the pillar represents a year they lived. The side on the right of the building that’s adjacent commemorates the area where the few Belgians that survived tried to temporarily fight back before they were overcome by the Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR) who literary sprayed the entire place with bullets and consequently killing everyone on site.
Bernard Ntuyahaga was the former army major who was involved in the killing of the Belgian paratroopers and was convicted by the Belgian jury which sentenced him to a jail term of twenty five years on 5th July 2007
Do you wish to visit the Camp Beligian Monument in Kigali? See our affordable Rwanda safari tours to learn more about visiting Kigali and Rwanda at large including other monuments and memorial centers.
