Belgian business delegation on a trade mission in Kigali visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial and the Belgian Peacekeepers Memorial on Sunday, March 27, 2022.
The Kigali Genocide Memorial houses over 250,000 remains of the victims of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi which cost over a million lives and perpetuated by the government of the time.
The Belgian Peacekeepers Memorial honours 10 Belgian fighters who were part of a peacekeeping mission under the United Nations and 12 others Belgians murdered during the Genocide.
The soldiers were part of the security detail of former Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana who was killed at her home by government soldiers at the beginning of the Genocide
This tour to different historical sites in Kigali is part of their agenda during their five-day visit which will end on March 31.
After touring the memorial site’s mass graves to have a glimpse of how the Genocide was prepared until, the delegates were also shown different routes, the suburbs of Kigali, and got explanations on various historical places, the strides made in the development of Rwanda including how far the country has come in building a knowledge-based economy.
Rebecca Ntunguka, a Rwandan-Burundian living in Belgium with a travel agency called Art-2-Travel, said she was visiting the memorial for the fourth time and she says that her emotions are the same every time she visits.
“You understand that it’s not only about one million people who died but they were killed by their own neighbours. To properly organize and manage an entire population so that there is no aftermath revenge which would have led to more deaths requires a certain level of discipline,” she said.
The investors in attendance cut across various sectors, with the most representative being in Infrastructure and construction, water treatment sector, health sector as well as Information Technology sector.
Rwanda and Belgium have built stable economic and military ties in the past and it is expected that this trade mission will bolster the bilateral cooperation between both countries.