Kibeho is one of the many historical towns of Rwanda. It’s popular for the massacres that befell this town in 1994. This was perpetrated by the Rwandan Hutu majority against Tutsi minority.
Numerous lives were lost, property looted and destroyed, and untold displacement of the town’s residents.
Prior to this regrettable incident, the town had made a name from the reported visions by three girls Mukamazimpaka, Mukangango and Mumureke who alleged that they had seen Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary after they allegedly appeared to them.
In their visions, they claimed to have seen mass murders, heads sliced and filled on the grounds, rivers flowing with blood instead of water, among other scary events in 1982.
These visions were followed with intense pain and trauma to these girls. The events as detailed in the three girl’s visions are alleged by some to have foreseen the genocide that later happened in 1994 in which an estimation of 100,000 lives are reported to have been lost.
About 6,000 lives were lost in Kibeho alone during genocide. This town later because a camp to refugees.
About 100,000 people stayed in the camp, but at the time, it was still hard to realize and identify the real victims and some perpetrators or aides to the perpetrators.
The Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) closed the camp a year after the genocide and claimed to do what it termed as cleansing. The camp’s closure saw numerous camp inhabitants sent back to their homes.
However, the RPF, which had Tutsi as majority, opened fire at the identifiable perpetrators of the genocide that had been retained at the camp.
It was an execution. Zambian and Australia forces were witnesses to this execution which is popularly referred to as the Kibeho Massacre.
There are some accounts which still recollect that the camp must have been infuriated by the genocide perpetrators. Kibeho camp had after some weeks been highly crowded and those that sought refuge soon started running out of food and water.
The perpetrators had sought to create a diversion and so wielded machete against their fellow camp inhabitants.
There was unrest and so the RPF sought to control the crowd. However, this didn’t end well, as the restlessness went on and consequentially many innocent people were killed.
This prompted shootings from the camp’s RPF guards. The firing however ended up becoming revenge seeking for some of the shooters, who shot indiscriminately and within the scuffles, the stray bullets left many for dead.
This town in Nyaruguru District was never the same. The formerly popular Christian holy ground turned into a center of massacre stories.
Today, this town in Rwanda’s southern province has since become a major tourist site, for Christian pilgrims and other tourists from all walks of life.
At Kibeho Church, many residents of the town that had hidden in there were brutally murdered during the 1994 genocide, and sadly, one of the three girls who claimed Jesus Christ had appeared to her, was murdered in the same church after it was burnt.
This place has become a tourist site and while in the town, there is story telling of both accounts; from a holy ground to a massacre land.
These stories trigger pain, and teach more about what many in the world may not have known until they set foot there. A tourist who makes their way to Rwanda can visit this place and have a more detailed personal experience.
Kibeho has some last surviving escapees of the 1994 genocide and these too also help to give a more personal account of what befell the site.
There are also centers with photos of some of those that were lost and mild memorial grounds. There is great influx of history researchers and reporters who attempt to learn more about the reported events from 1982 to 1995.
The town’s residents are very welcoming and therefore tourists don’t have to worry about their hospitality. Tour guides also help in the navigation of this area. In conclusion, it’s an informative tour when in Kibeho town.
