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What happened in Rwanda in 1994 was one of the most horrible and shocking things in human history.

If you could not find refuge, you had only one choice: kill or be killed. An estimated 800,000 people of the Tutsi tribe and moderate Hutus were brutally slaughtered in only 3 months' time.

When traveling Rwanda, it's hardly imaginable that the people carry a history like that. There's such a peaceful and friendly mood in all places.

That said, it's important to visit one of the genocide memorials to understand Rwanda and to show respect to the survivors that carry such terrible memories. Bones and skulls are on display around some of the mass graves that makes it all an even more shivering experience.

After the genocide, the Kigali City Council decided to dedicate a site for the burial of its people in a single place. Many mass graves were exhumed from around the city and the remains interred at the Kigali Memorial Center in Gisozi district. This is now their final resting place. It is a poignant symbol of the devastation that genocide brought to families across the city and the country as a whole.

The exhibition in the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center tells the history of Rwanda leading up to genocide in 1994 and catalogues the details of the genocide using photographs, video, written accounts and a range of artifacts. It includes personal testimonies and a moving memorial to the children of the Rwandan genocide. The exhibition also has a section called "wasted lives," which reflects on the holocausts and genocides in Armenia, South-West Africa, Bosnia and Cambodia. The Kigali Memorial Center has gained a word-wide reputation for the powerful exhibition and its work in promoting peace.

The memorial houses a children's section, a particularly powerful experience to read about the children - how they lived, and how they died. Amongst other things, it traces how things came to being so bad, how the ideology of genocide emerged, how the tragedy could have been averted, and how the world ignored the signs and warnings repeatedly.

Some of the survivors of the genocide have been trained as guides at the center; take your time to absorb its important message.

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Keywords: Kigali genocide memorial museum, Kigali genocide memorial centre, Gisozi memorial centre, kigali rwanda

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ken Ndays, Kigali