Feature: 22 years later, some Rwandans continue search for remains of their relatives

Jeannette Mukagatare, a Rwandan genocide survivor certainly knows her daughter Jeanne was killed in 1994 genocide against Tutsi.

She was a gorgeous girl, Mukagatare recalls.

In 1994, Hutu militias attacked Gahini sector and killed Jeanne along with more than 200 other victims, whose remains are yet to be discovered 22 years after the genocide.

The massacres in Gahini were one of the gruesome killings in the genocide in which more than one million people perished.

Ever since the genocide was stopped, relatives have been searching for remains of their loved ones to give them a befitting burial.

But 22 years later, remains of about 200 genocide victims in the area are yet to be traced.

"Nobody volunteers information on where their bodies were buried," said Mukagatare. "The search has been in vain. Genocide perpetrators are all mum. We don't know what to do. But we hope one day their remains will be given decent burial if found."

Recent search led to retrieval of remains of one person, which were given decent burial on Wednesday at Rukara memorial site, Kayonz district, shelter to over 8,830 victims buried in earlier years.

Survivors say this is very small number compared to the reality.

But the retrieval of remains of one raised some hopes among families.

Mukagatare said she still feels grief thinking about how victims were dumped some in pit latrines.

The 22 years of searching for the remains taunts relatives and friends, who complain that genocide perpetrators have not been cooperative to help their attempts to locate the remains to be given a decent reburial.

At Wednesday's burial, Mukagatare said they will not close the search for the remains of their loved ones killed in the genocide.

"We live with their killers after serving their jail terms but nobody can tell you where our relatives and neighbours were dumped," Jean Damascene Masabo, another survivor said.

"We counted victims based on the residents we knew lived here but never fled the killings. The families that we know played an active role their massacres are mum on where they dumped them."

Jean Baptiste Murengezi, coordinator of association of genocide survivors in the area known as Ibuka, says they have been encouraging genocide perpetrators to reveal where victims' bodies were dumped as a way to foster reconciliation and healing process.

"Showing us where they dumped the remains of our relatives to be accorded a befitting reburial will go a long way in fostering reconciliation," he said.

Speaking at the reburial ceremony, Rwandan Senator Mike Rugema called on genocide perpetrators to come forth and reveal where bodies were buried so as to give them decent send off.

"It raises questions that after years of sensitization we recovered remains of only one victim. People in this area should do enough to help locate the whereabouts of the victims' remains. This will relieve both the families of the perpetrators and the victims," he said.

Mukagatare said her daughter was in school and hoped to become a pharmacist.

She was still a young girl in senior two but knew what she wanted, said Mukagatare. "She loved education."

Senator Rugema said the search for remains which were dumped in different areas have been retrieved in other neighbouring places.

Remains of more than 70 victims of the genocide were on Monday reburied in Kayonza and Gatsibo districts, eastern Rwanda.

Genocide commemoration week ended on Wednesday countrywide but ceremonies will continue lasting 100 days till July.

Different people will be commemorating on different days and places, where their relatives and friends were killed.

Rwandans are called on to support and stand with genocide survivors, as they remember their loved ones who were killed.

Concealing whereabouts of remains of genocide victims is in particular associated with people who still harbor genocide ideology, whose fight formed this year's commemoration theme.

Over the commemoration week, more than 30 cases of genocide ideology were reported to police, across the country, according to Dr Jean Damascene Bizimana, executive secretary of the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide. Endit