UN envoy leads mourners of Rwanda's 1994 genocide to site of early massacre

The United Nations Special Adviser on Africa, Ibrahim Gambari, representing the UN at ceremonies to mark the tenth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, today led a silent 3-kilometre march to the Nyanza cemetery, where one of the earliest massacres of the 100-day orgy of killing took place.

On 8 April 1994, the second day of the genocide in which at least 800,000 people lost their lives, some 2,500 men, women and children were murdered in Nyanza, on the outskirts of the capital, Kigali, spokesman Stephane Dujarric told journalists in New York.

Delivering an address yesterday on behalf of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Mr. Gambari told Rwandans that though the international community failed them in 1994, the UN is now doing what it can to help Rwandans, especially young people, build a new society together.

It has been providing assistance with clearing mines, repatriating refugees, rehabilitating clinics and schools, and building up the judicial system, he said.