Nyaruguru district residents living in Kigali town have requested that historical places should be marked even when the memorial graves are shifted to other places.

The request comes after the government of Rwanda has embarked on reducing the number of 1994 Tutsi genocide memorial sites for easy maintenance.

Genocide memorial sites were built in areas where massacres took place during 1994 Tutsi genocide. However, victims’ bodies have to be shifted to other memorial sites because of low capacity as far as maintenance is concerned.

It’s in this regard that genocide survivors see it right to reserve those places as historical so that history is not forgotten.

Theodore Simburudari, one of Nyaruguru residents says memorial sites should remain standing in areas where many Tutsis were massacred but their bodies can be taken to other graves.

“An example is a place like Nshiri where Tutsis were stopped and killed at the border trying to cross over to another country. Such a place needs a historical significance,” Simburudari laments.

The genocide survivors wish that books be written about the famous killers that killed multitude Tutsis.

Also, where people were killed should be marked with sign posts showing how the persecuted went from place to place until killed. This would help the government to spend less yet build memorial sites.

Nyaruguru genocide survivors in Kigali took time to remember the victims in a mass at Sainte Famille parish in Kigali town.