Nyamata city | |
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Coordinates: 02°12′18″S30°08′42″E / 2.20500°S 30.14500°E | |
Country | Rwanda |
Province | Eastern Province |
District | Bugesera District |
Area | |
• Total | 95 km2 (37 sq mi) |
Elevation | 1,340 m (4,400 ft) |
Population (2012 census) | |
• Total | 34,922 |
• Density | 370/km2 (950/sq mi) |
Climate | Aw |
Nyamata is a town in the Bugesera District, southeastern Rwanda. Nyamata literally means 'place of milk' from the two Kinyarwanda words nya- 'of' and amata 'milk'. [1] It is the location of the Nyamata Genocide Memorial, commemorating the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
It is not well known what happened in the region before 1900. [2] The area was originally part of the Kingdom of Bugesera, but was conquered by Rwanda in the late 19th century. [3] In March 1992, the town and its surroundings were the site of anti-Tutsi massacres. [4]
Nyamata is located in Bugesera District, Eastern Province, directly south of Kigali, the national capital and the largest city in the country. Its location is about 39 kilometres (24 mi), by road, south of Kigali. [5]
Nyamata is a small town in Bugesera District, Rwanda. Since 2017, a new airport, Bugesera International Airport, is under construction, with the first phases expected to be completed in 2019. [6]
The town is the location of Nyamata Genocide Memorial, commemorating the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Located at the site where Nyamata Parish Catholic Church once stood, the memorial contains the remains of over 45,000 genocide victims, almost all of whom were Tutsi, including over 10,000 who were massacred inside the church itself. [1] [7]
This section needs to be updated.(October 2022) |
According to the national population census of 15 August 2012, the population of Nyamata consisted of 17,076 people. [8] As of 2022, it was confirmed that the numbers have since then grown to 34,922 people.
Nyamata has since then developed into a busy town with lots of infrastructures and facilities like Churches, Hotels and Factories put in place. [9]
The following points of interest lie within the town limits or close to the edges of town:
Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is highly elevated, giving it the soubriquet "land of a thousand hills", with its geography dominated by mountains in the west and savanna to the southeast, with numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate to subtropical, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year. It is the most densely populated mainland African country; among countries larger than 10,000 km2, it is the fifth most densely populated country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kigali.
Kigali is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. As a primate city, Kigali is a relatively new city. It has been Rwanda's economic, cultural, and transport hub since it was founded as an administrative outpost in 1907, and became the capital of the country at independence in 1962, shifting focus away from Huye.
The Murambi Technical School, now known as the Murambi Genocide Memorial Centre, is situated near the town of Murambi in southern Rwanda.
Kibuye is a city in Karongi District, and the headquarters of the Western Province in Rwanda.
Bugesera is a district (akarere) in Eastern Province, Rwanda. Its capital is Nyamata. The district is named after the old Kingdom of Bugesera.
Kigali International Airport, formerly known as Kanombe International Airport, is the primary international airport serving Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Currently, there is an ongoing project to build another mega-airport in Bugesera District, Eastern Province, which will be the biggest and the main air gateway for all destinations in the country, in addition to serving as a transit airport for Goma and Bukavu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are 4 airlines based in Kigali: RwandAir, the flag carrier airline of Rwanda; Akagera Aviation, a Rwandan heli-company; Tempus Jet, an American airline providing charter flights; and Nexus Aero, a Saudi VIP airline.
The Rwandese National Union was a conservative, pro-monarchy political party in Rwanda.
The five provinces of Rwanda are divided into 30 districts. Each district is in turn divided into sectors, which are in turn divided into cells, which are in turn divided into villages.
The Kigali Genocide Memorial commemorates the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The remains of over 250,000 people are interred there.
These are some of the articles related to Rwanda on the English Wikipedia pages:
Antonia Locatelli was an Italian Roman Catholic missionary educator who had lived in Rwanda since the early 1970s.
Lake Muhazi is a long thin shallow lake in the east of Rwanda. The bulk of the lake lies in the Eastern Province, with the western end forming the border between the Northern and Kigali Provinces. It is a flooded valley lake, lying predominantly in an east to west direction, but with numerous offshoots in a north to south direction, formerly the location of tributaries. The lake has a concrete dam at the western end, constructed in 1999 to replace an earth dam which had existed since time immemorial. The lake empties into the Nyabugogo River, which flows southwards to Kigali where it meets the Nyabarongo River, part of the upper Nile.
Bugesera International Airport is an airport in the Bugesera District of Rwanda under construction since 2017.
Nemba is a settlement in Rwanda.
Scholastique Mukasonga is a French-Rwandan author born in the former Gikongoro province of Rwanda. In 2012, She won the prix Renaudot and the prix Ahmadou-Kourouma for her book Our Lady of the Nile. In addition to being a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Mukasonga was rewarded in 2014 with the Seligmann Prize against racism and intolerance and in 2015 with the prize Société des gens de lettres. She currently resides in Normandy, France.
Ntarama Genocide Memorial Centre is one of six genocide museums in Rwanda. Five thousand people were killed here in the Catholic church.
The Nyamata Genocide Memorial is based around a former church 30 km (19 mi) south of Kigali in Rwanda, which commemorates the Rwandan genocide in 1994. The remains of 50,000 people are buried here.
Rilima is a town in southeastern Rwanda. It is the nearest urban center to Bugesera International Airport.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Kigali, Rwanda.
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.