Vice President Hamid Ansari today paid tributes to the victims of the 1994 horrific Rwandan Genocide at a memorial which is the final resting place for more than 250,000 people who were massacred.
The Vice President visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial this morning, a day after arriving in the capital on his five-day two-nation tour that will also take him to another East African country Uganda.
Ansari paid tribute to the victims of the horrendous tragedy by laying a wreath at the memorial site and also took a tour of the site, which, among other exhibits the skulls and belonging of several victims.
"He was received by the Director of the memorial and representatives of the Rwandan government and was guided at the site by the manager of the memorial," a senior official said.
The site commemorates the mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government in 1994.
The memorial was opened in 2004.
"In 1999, the City of Kigali provided land where a place of remembrance could be built and where victims of the genocide against the Tutsi could receive a dignified burial. Construction of the Kigali Genocide Memorial began in the same year and the process of burying victims began in 2001. Today the memorial serves as the final resting place for more than 250,000 victims of the genocide," according to the memorial's official website.
"The objective and the concept was to create a place to remember our beloved relatives and pay tributes and that people would understand the impact of what happened to never repeat it in the future," according to an official who was associated with the memorial project.
Ansari is also scheduled to visit the Rwandan Senate where he will meet with President of the Senate Bernard Makuza and hold bilateral talks. He will later attend a luncheon hosted by the Rwandan government in his honour and also meet President Paul Kagame at the Presidential Palace.
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