Browse Items (43 total)

Located inside the former Ntarama Sunday School building, the memorial preserves the place where perpetrators smashed children against a brick wall. The memorial uses product to preserve the brain matter and blood stains. The stick resting near the…

Rwandan genocide memorials preserve the damage inflicted by perpetrators during the attacks. At Ntarama, Hutu militiamen first attacked Tutsi hidden in the church with grenades and artillery before entering the church. Visitors can see the damage…

Shelves of skulls and other bones rest inside the Ntarama church. The inflicted skull damage often illustrates just how the victims died. Many skulls are cut in a manner that indicates a machete blow. Other contain projectile wounds from artillery…

Many Christian symbols and artifacts are preserved at Ntarama. Rosaries, crosses, and other Christian totems belonging to victims hang on display. Murals of the Crucifixion are still visible on the walls. Bibles and Sunday School books are also…

The roof over the Ntarama church protects the church from further decay from weather. A memorial wall was constructed nearby, although most of the memorial name squares are empty. Identification is a difficult process at Rwandan massacre sites, a…

I.D. cards were first issued during the colonial period. The post-independence regimes led by Gregoire Kayibanda and Juvenal Habyarimana continued this practice. Those possessing a Tutsi I.D. met both personal and institutional discrimination. During…

Many Rwandan memorials preserve the clothing of Tutsi victims. At Ntarama the clothing drapes alongside the inner wall of the church.

The empty church altar sits amongst coffins of identified victims.

Approximately 5,000 people died at Ntarama in mid-April 1994. The memorial displays exhumed bones on shelves placed at the back of the church.

In addition to the seven national memorial sites, every district has a local memorial. Nearly every district experienced intense casualties during the genocide. In some districts these memorials are mass graves. In others the memorial is just a…