Gisenyi Genocide Memorial Site
Gisenyi is a city on the edge of Lake Kivu, close to Rwanda’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Congolese city of Goma. Its place in history is marked infamously as the starting point of the Rwandan Genocide in 1994. 12,000 victims murdered in the neighborhoods of Corniche and Nyundo were collected and buried here at the Gisenyi Memorial Site, within an otherwise ordinary cemetery. The site was the first to be established in the country by both the Rwandan Ministry of Youth, Sports, and Culture and IBUKA, a Kigali-based organization dedicated to ensuring justice for survivors of the genocide and preventing further violence.
Although the site was the first to be established, residents have remarked that more distinction must be made to separate the graves of genocide victims from the others buried in the cemetery.