Geography

Rwanda is a landlocked country situated in central Africa. Also known as ’The Land of a Thousand Hills’, Rwanda has five volcanoes, 23 lakes and numerous rivers, some forming the source of the River Nile. The country lies 75 miles south of the equator in the Tropic of Capricorn, 880 miles ’as the crow flies’ west of the Indian Ocean and 1,250 miles east of the Atlantic Ocean - literally in the heart of Africa. The Altitude ranges from 950m to 4500m above the sea level.

Rwanda is bordered by Uganda to the north, Tanzania to the east, Burundi to the south and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the west.

Rwanda has two rainy seasons, March – May and October – November, with an average rainfall of 110-200 mm per month. 

The average Temperature ranges from 24.6 to 27.6ºc, with the Hottest months being August, and September. 

The Main water bodies are Lake Kivu, Lake Muhazi, Lake Ihema, Lake Bulera, Lake Ruhondo, Lake Mugesera.

Rwanda's Vegetation ranges from dense equatorial forest in the north-west of the country to tropical savannah in the east.

Main National Parks/Animal Reserves are Akagera, Volcanoes and Gishwati-Mukura National Parks.

In Rwanda the great animals of the wild are protected from poachers and roam free in the vast national parks. The Volcanoes National Park in the Virunga volcanic mountains with its high altitude forests is world famous for mountain gorillas - timid and passive family oriented giants. The Park is teeming with wildlife both large and small, while Lake Kivu to the west offers beautiful beaches, jutting peninsulas and an archipelago of islands.

People & Culture

With an estimated total population of 12.3 million people, Rwanda is a relatively young country.  50 percent of the Rwandan population is under 20 years old, with the median age standing at 22.7 years old. 

Rwandans share cultural values notably unity, patriotism, social cohesion, resilience, hard work among others, with Kinyarwanda being the common language, spoken in all parts the country. Other official languages are English, French and Kiswahili. 

The country's rich culture has become as a source of inspiration to craft some unconventional, home grown solutions to address the challenges and the consequences of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. These include among others, Umuganda (Community work), Imihigo (Performance contracts), Gacaca [traditional] courts, Abunzi. 

Umuganura or harvest day remains the country's largest festivity where Rwandans from all corners of the country meet to celebrate achievements in different sectors and recommit to doubling effort to achieve more. 

Music and dance make an integral part of Rwandan ceremonies, with Umushayayo and Intore dances having won the hearts of cultural performance lovers.

Rwandan artcrafts display high level of skills and creativity in the country of thousand hills, with Agaseke or handwoven basket having won international acclaim. Imigongo pattern and Rwanda's growing fashion industry have also become iconic of the Made in Rwanda brand. 

History

For centuries, Rwanda existed as a centralized monarchy under a succession of kings from one clan, who ruled through cattle chiefs, land chiefs and military chiefs. The king was supreme but the rest of the population, Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, lived in symbiotic harmony. In 1899, Rwanda became a German colony and, in 1919, the system of indirect rule continued with Rwanda as a mandate territory of the League of Nations, under Belgium.
 

Genocide

Over one million Rwandans were brutally killed in 100 days during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. The worst Genocide of the 20th century was prepared and implemented by the genocidal regime which trained Interahamwe militia and extremist Hutus to kill Tutsis and Hutus opposed to the killing using machetes, clubs, spears and other traditional weapons, with the full support of government security forces. Some of the victims were abandoned in the hands of the killers by the United Nations Peace Keeping forces, demonstrating a failure of the International community despite the "Never Again" pledge adopted in 1945. 

Rwandans commemorate the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi on April 7 which was also adopted by the United Nations as the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide Against the Tutsi. The commemoration (also known in Kinyarwanda as Kwibuka) provides an important opportunity to remember the victims of the genocide, preserve its evidence and educate about its history as well as the lessons that Rwanda has learned. In Rwanda, commemoration activities run until July 4 when the Rwanda Patriotic Army stopped the genocide and liberated the country.   

Genocide is never spontaneous. It is an intentional act of multiple murders, aimed at destroying the presence of the victim group. Its perpetrators do not respect age, gender, occupation, religion or status. Not every act of genocidal violence results in genocide itself. Different types of crisis have different names, such as politicide (murder of political groups) and ethnocide (murder of ethnic groups). This does not imply that one is ’better’ or ’worse’ than the other, but that they are different in either motivation or outcome. Whatever the term used; victims of mass murder feel, often with good reason, that they have suffered a genocidal attempt on their lives.

The exhibition at the Kigali Memorial Centre introduces several genocides and genocidal-type situations. It does not give examples of all genocidal massacres because of limited space. It can only illustrate a few examples, representing a tragic cross-section of a century of genocide..