This was not my usual Bugesera weekend getaway. As I crossed the Akagera River, the popular Gahembe brochette was not on my mind. Neither was the mojito I like sipping while relaxing on the swinging hammock at Bugesera Lake Resort.
My destination was the Ntarama Genocide Memorial. Upon arrival, I joined a group of foreign tourists visiting Rwanda with Kobo Safaris. What followed was a guided tour that took us through one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Land of a Thousand Hills.
Built in the 1980s, the property was originally a Catholic church. As was the case elsewhere in the country, a large number of targeted Rwandans sought refuge in the church and its compound during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
In previous massacres, perpetrators had largely refrained from committing their crimes in places of worship. That explains why numerous people flocked to churches in 1994. In a shocking twist, the scale of the violence turned Rwandan churches into places of slaughter.
The vast majority of Rwandans were Catholics, and the popularity of Christianity in the former Belgian colony can be traced to the baptism of King Mutara III Rudahigwa and the subsequent dedication of the protectorate to Jesus Christ in the 1940s.
Back at Ntarama, our tour began in the church’s main building. We then proceeded to the parish office, Sunday school, and kitchen. Finally, we laid a wreath on the mass grave and observed a minute of silence. The sight of skulls bearing machete-inflicted cuts, bullet holes, and other forms of damage shook me to the core. While storming the church, the attackers broke through parts of the walls, leaving behind openings that are preserved to this day.
These weapons are also displayed alongside photos of some of the victims, their clothes, and other belongings. As I skimmed through exercise books once used by children before their untimely deaths, it was difficult to hold myself together.
Also on the premises is a spacious hangar filled with clothing items that belonged to innocent people who met the devil in the house of God. Inside the mass grave structure, coffins containing the remains of victims are piled up. I could barely spend a minute down there. On my way out of the final resting place of 5,000 victims, I saw their names engraved on a polished wall.
While in the Sunday school, our guide recounted horrific acts, including the killing of unborn children in brutal ways. Three decades later, the wall in question still bears dried blood stains.
Across more than 200 memorial sites in Rwanda, the remains of hundreds of thousands of victims have been laid to rest—each site carrying its own weight, yet all part of a shared national memory. Even now, more remains continue to be discovered and given a dignified burial, a reminder that this process will take many years. Sadly, not all will ever be found. Some were carried away by rivers like the Kagera, their journey extending into Lake Victoria and beyond, leaving behind memories without graves.
As we stepped away from the memorial, the silence lingered longer than the visit itself. Outside, life carried on—quietly, steadily—yet something within me had shifted. Ntarama is not just a place you visit and leave behind; it stays with you, in the questions it raises and the weight it carries. And in that stillness, beyond the pain and the history, there is also a quiet reminder of resilience—the kind that refuses to be erased.