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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

RWANDA: Government welcomes UN genocide commemoration

NAIROBI, 31 December 2003 (IRIN) - The Rwandan government on Tuesday praised the efforts of the African Union (AU) in promoting the adoption by the UN General Assembly of a resolution designating 7 April 2004 as International Day of Reflection on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Rwandan Radio reported.

The text, which was adopted by the Assembly on 23 December, was tabled by Mozambique in its capacity as chairman of the AU, the radio said. The date of the commemoration marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the genocide, in which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by extremist Hutus over a three-month period.

The Assembly, noting that many of the perpetrators continued to elude justice, expressed its conviction that exposing and holding them and their accomplices accountable, as well as restoring the dignity of the victims, would "guide societies in the prevention of further such violations".

Radio Rwanda said the Rwandan government urgently appealed to African nations in particular, and to the international community in general, to fight with all available resources the perpetrators of the genocide.

It appealed again to countries harbouring Rwandans suspected of involvement in the genocide to hand them over to the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, or to the Rwandan judiciary, the radio said.

Theme(s): (IRIN) Conflict, (IRIN) Human Rights, (IRIN) Refugees/IDPs

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