Bugesera today, is no longer the land of rejected.

An artistic impression of the proposed Bugesera international airport. (The new times)



Bugesera district is located in the south Eastern plains of Rwanda. It is in the south west of the Eastern Province, a few miles away capital city, Kigali. Bugesera was once a land of rejected, after Tutsis from Ruhengeri, Gitarama and Gikongoro were forcibly relocated to that area with plenty of uninhabited land but infested with the dangerous Tsetse flies.
 

To the high risk of being bite by Tsetse flies, the newly occupants of Bugesera struggled with daily life as there was no basic infrastructures before the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Tutsi in Nyamata forests were not enjoying the agriculture or cattle keeping but a life of persecution, discrimination and being the target of killings.

During the first Republic under President Gregoire Kayinda, The Inyenzi attacks of the 1960s were followed by arrests and killing of Tutsis throughout the country, but especially in Bugesera. When the Inyenzi rebels were defeated, more than 200 Tutsis were killed in Bugesera, under the pretext of being accomplices of the rebels. 

‘’Throughout the First Republic period, Tutsi were persecuted in Bugesera as elsewhere in Rwanda. They were called snakes, wolves, enemies, colonizers, and other names intended to dehumanize them as an ethnic group. 

They lost rights to their properties because their land had been confiscated, forcing them to live in the Nyamata forests. Children were excluded from public secondary schools and adults were prevented from taking employment in public administration.’’ AEGIS-Trust.

Under the politics of ethnic equilibrium of Juvenal Habyarimana’s regime, nothing improved in Bugesera.

In the area where remarkably dominated by the savannas densely shrubs covering the hills and the grassy savannas covering the dry valleys and the trays of the hills.

Churches where people would go for purification, blessings, prayers and holly communion turned into scenes of killings in 1994. Men and women were slaughtered mercilessly and little babies killed by being hit against the wall.

And now former Catholic Church of Ntarama and Nyamata keep fifty-five thousand bodies of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi victims.

In marshes, under the heavy rain, a few Tutsis managed to survive attacks of Interahamwe militia men and now they keep souls of their beloved ones alive. 

In her testimony recently on 9^th April 2017 at Ntarama Genocide Memorial, Niwemugeni who survived in Ntarama church, she said that her way of cross started from their home, to Ntarama church, then to Kimpima hill, to former Nyamata parish, to wetlands around River Akagera and so many more places.

She sometimes cried when she remembers her worst past, contradicting her tale when she talks about the present and a bright future she envisages. She is proud to be now a university graduate, with a master’s degree. And she embodies the government’s call to be stronger.

“‘Truth’ will always overpower the ‘lie. This should make us stronger. Let us remember with hope, by committing ourselves to live better, decent life, we owe it to ourselves to strive for the better,” Minister of local government, Francis Kaboneka says.

Bugesera lost its people but now from almost zero infrastructures, hotels, roads that connect it to neighboring areas and various businesses now are booming. They have revitalized the district. And international airport construction activities are underway.

By building on our progress, Authorities in Bugesera says that they eye to improve trade.  Its borders with Burundi where there are thriving economic activities. The district has already offered plots to investors at Nemba to build a trading center at the border.

Bugesera, was a home of harassed under first and second republics but under RPF-Inkotanyi authority that halted the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Bugesera is born again.