After a ceremony last summer commemorating the end of the annual mourning period for victims of the genocide, our friend and colleague Ben took us on a tour of the memorial site housing mass graves and explains the history.
The École Technique Officielle memorial site just outside Kigali was formerly a school and the actual location depicted in the movie “Shooting Dogs.” During the genocide, Tutsi gathered at the school, expecting the Belgian UN peacekeepers stationed there to save them. Instead, they were abandoned and more than 2,000 were massacred.
The Tutsi desperately tried to get on to one of the UN trucks but only foreigners were are allowed to board. Once their fate became clear to them, panic spread through the crowd about to be left behind. Terrified of their fate, some tried to lie in front of the trucks. Others begged the UN troops to shoot them before they left.
