One policeman was killed Thursday when two unidentified men armed with hand grenades attacked the Gisozi Genocide Memorial in Rwanda’s capital city of Kigali, where several persons were gathered in a vigil in memory of the 1994 genocide victims, a police source here said on Friday.
“It’s true the Gisozi Genocide Memorial was attacked last night (Thursday) and a police officer was killed during this overnight attack,” Rwandan police Spokesman, Inspector Willy Marcel Higiro, said.
He said no one else was killed or injured in the attack, but that several vehicles parked near the memorial were damaged.
The Spokesman said the police had launched an investigation into the attack.
According to the police, it was the first large scale attack against a genocide memorial in Rwanda.
“This attack is a proof of a lingering genocidal ideology in the country,” Théodore Simburudali, chairman of Ibuka (Remember), one of the main survivors’ organisations, said.
The Gisozi Genocide Memorial (the biggest in the country), hosts some 250,000 bodies of the victims of the 1994 genocide, during which more than 800,000 people, mainly from the Tutsi community, were killed during the 100 days of massacres.
