Kibeho is a sector and small town in south Rwanda, which became known outside of that country because of reported apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ occurring between 1981 and 1989. It is also known for the Kibeho Massacre in April 1995, when several thousand internally displaced people were killed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army.
The Blessed Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie-Claire Mukangango in Kibeho in 1981, as Our Lady of Sorrows. These apparitions were accompanied by intense reactions: crying, tremors, and comas. [2]
On 19 August 1982, those who saw the visions reported gruesome sights (rivers of blood, sliced heads, etc.) which some[who?] today regard as an ominous foreshadowing of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and particularly in that specific location in 1994 (Tutsi killed) and 1995 (Hutu killed).
CatholicBishopAugustin Misago of Gikongoro, Rwanda approved public devotion linked to the apparitions on 15 August 1988 and declared their authenticity on 29 June 2001. In his declaration, the bishop singled out visions of the Virgin Mary by the three original visionaries as worthy of belief; but declined to declare as worthy of belief the purported visions of Jesus by four other visionaries due to "disquieting personal situations" in that case.[3]
Rwandan genocide
The Church of Kibeho apparitions.
Kibeho church was the site of one of the early massacres of the Rwandan genocide; it is estimated that around 17,500 people were killed.[4]
After the 1994 genocide, in which the Hutu killed an estimated 5,000–6,000 Tutsi in Kibeho, it became the site of an internally displaced person refugee camp, with many of the Hutu refugees suspected of having participated in the genocide. The camp was the largest in Rwanda, spreading 9km2 (3.5sqmi) and containing between 80,000 and 100,000 people.[5] In mid-April 1995, elements of the Tutsi, led Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), announced they would close the camp, with the aim of forcibly separating known Génocidaires from those who would be sent home. As the camp was closed, tensions mounted and RPA troops opened fire on some of the remaining refugees.
There were no foreign troops or reporters in Kibeho in 1994. Photographer Sebastião Salgado visited the camp in the early months of 1995 and published around ten pictures in his book Migrations.
Many of these were killed in the same school in which the apparitions had occurred; one of the children who reported the vision was even one of the victims. The local bishop recognized officially on 29 June 2001 three cases as authentic. The church Notre-Dame des Douleurs (Our Lady of Sorrows) was built in Kibeho, supported by Pallottines.
The Rwandan Patriotic Front is the ruling political party in Rwanda.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred between 7 April and 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide, the actual number of fatalities is unclear, and some estimates suggest that the real number killed was likely lower. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.
Opération Turquoise was a French-led military operation in Rwanda in 1994 under the mandate of the United Nations. The "multilateral" force consisted of 2,500 troops, 32 from Senegal and the rest French. The equipment included 100 APCs, 10 helicopters, a battery of 120 mm mortars, 4 Jaguar fighter bombers, 8 Mirage fighters, and reconnaissance aircraft. The helicopters laid a trail of food, water and medicine enabling refugees to escape into eastern Zaire. Opération Turquoise is controversial for at least two reasons: accusations that it was an attempt to prop up the genocidal Hutu regime, and that its mandate undermined the UNAMIR. By facilitating 2 million Rwandan refugees to travel to Kivu provinces in Zaire, Turquoise setup the causes of the First Congo War.
The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces, representing the country's government, and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population. A 1959–1962 revolution had replaced the Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu-led republic, forcing more than 336,000 Tutsi to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. A group of these refugees in Uganda founded the RPF which, under the leadership of Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame, became a battle-ready army by the late 1980s.
Sometimes in April is a 2005 American made-for-television historical drama film about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, written and directed by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The ensemble cast includes Idris Elba, Oris Erhuero, Carole Karemera, and Debra Winger.
The Murambi Technical School, now known as the Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre, is situated near the town of Murambi in southern Rwanda.
The Kibeho massacre occurred in a camp for internally displaced persons near Kibeho, in south-west Rwanda on 22 April 1995. Australian soldiers serving as part of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda estimated at least 4,000 people in the camp were killed by soldiers of the military wing of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, known as the Rwandan Patriotic Army. The Rwandan Government estimated the death toll to be 338.
The Great Lakes refugee crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries of the Great Lakes region of Africa in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Many of the refugees were Hutu fleeing the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which had gained control of the country at the end of the genocide. However, the humanitarian relief effort was vastly compromised by the presence among the refugees of many of the Interahamwe and government officials who carried out the genocide, who used the refugee camps as bases to launch attacks against the new government led by Paul Kagame. The camps in Zaire became particularly politicized and militarized. The knowledge that humanitarian aid was being diverted to further the aims of the genocidaires led many humanitarian organizations to withdraw their assistance. The conflict escalated until the start of the First Congo War in 1996, when RPF-supported rebels invaded Zaire and sought to repatriate the refugees.
Our Lady of Kibeho, also known as Our Lady of Sorrows of Kibeho, is a Catholic title of the Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the Marian apparitions reported in the 1980s by several adolescents in Kibeho, south-western Rwanda. The young visionaries were Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Gikongoro is a diocese located in the city of Gikongoro in the ecclesiastical province of Kigali in Rwanda. The diocese is home to the parish of Kibeho, where there were reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary throughout the 1980s. A shrine celebrating the apparitions of Our Lady of Kibeho now stands at the site and serves as a place of pilgrimage. The diocese also includes large Catholic parishes at Kaduha and Cyanika. Gikongoro was historically the poorest province in Rwanda. Gikongoro is now part of South Province.
Seth Sendashonga was the Minister of the Interior in the government of national unity in Rwanda, following the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) after the 1994 genocide. One of the politically moderate Hutus in the National Unity Cabinet, he became increasingly disenchanted with the RPF and was eventually forced from office in 1995 after criticizing government policies. After surviving a 1996 assassination attempt while in exile in Kenya, he launched a new opposition movement, the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD). Sendashonga was killed by unidentified gunmen in May 1998. The Rwandan government is widely believed to be responsible for the assassination.
The Chaplet of the Seven Sorrows, also known as the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows or the Servite Rosary, is a Rosary based prayer that originated with the Servite Order. It is often said in connection with the Seven Dolours of Mary.
These are some of the articles related to Rwanda on the English Wikipedia pages:
Gikongoro Province was one of the former twelve provinces (intara) of Rwanda and is situated in the southwest of the country. The former province had an area of some 2,146 square kilometers. Its population was estimated at 466,451 (1990) and 511,776 (2002) prior to its dissolution in January 2006, with an annual growth rate of .810% between the years of 1990 and 2002. It included 13 "communes" and 125 sectors.
Augustin Misago was the Roman Catholic bishop of the Diocese of Gikongoro, Rwanda.
Kabgayi is located just south of Gitarama in Muhanga District, Southern Province, Rwanda, 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Kigali. It was established as a Catholic Church mission in 1905. It became the center for the Roman Catholic Church in Rwanda and is the site of the oldest cathedral in the country and of Catholic seminaries, schools and a hospital. The church at first supported the Tutsi ruling elite, but later backed the Hutu majority. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide thousands of Tutsis who had taken refuge here were killed. Some survivors admire the courage of many priests who helped them during those difficult days, like Father Evergiste RUKEBESHA and many others. Later, some Hutus including three bishops and many priests were killed by the rebels RPF soldiers. A mass grave beside the hospital is marked by a memorial. Inside the Basilica are kept the bodies of the three bishops killed by FPR rebels. Two of them were refused by the Rwandan government to be transferred in their own cathedrals.
Marie Béatrice Umutesi is a Rwandan writer, NGO worker, peace activist and refugee living in Belgium.
In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House of Canada; it has also been translated into Dutch and French. The book describes alleged war crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Rwanda's ruling political party, during its ascent to power in the 1990s.
The Bugesera invasion, also known as the Bloody Christmas, was a military attack which was conducted against Rwanda by Inyenzi rebels who aimed to overthrow the government in December 1963. The Inyenzi were a collection of ethnically Tutsi exiles who were affiliated with the Rwandan political party Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR), which had supported Rwanda's deposed Tutsi monarchy. The Inyenzi opposed Rwanda's transformation upon independence from Belgium into a state run by the ethnic Hutu majority through the Parti du Mouvement de l'Emancipation Hutu (PARMEHUTU), an anti-Tutsi political party led by President Grégoire Kayibanda. In late 1963, Inyenzi leaders decided to launch an invasion of Rwanda from their bases in neighbouring countries to overthrow Kayibanda. While an attempted assault in November was stopped by the government of Burundi, early in the morning on 21 December 1963, several hundred Inyenzi crossed the Burundian border and captured the Rwandan military in camp in Gako, Bugesera. Bolstered with seized arms and recruited locals, the Iyenzi—numbering between 1,000 and 7,000—marched on the Rwandan capital, Kigali. They were stopped 12 miles south of the city at Kanzenze Bridge along the Nyabarongo River by multiple units of the Garde Nationale Rwandaise (GNR). The GNR routed the rebels with their superior firepower, and in subsequent days repelled further Inyenzi attacks launched from the Republic of the Congo and Uganda.
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Rwanda 
