1. INTRODUCTION TO NYANGE SECTOR
Because of the high number of victims killed there, Nyange was chosen as one of the 12 pilotsectors, which began work on the gacaca trials in June 2002. Nyange is now in Budahadistrict, Kibuye province, but in 1994 it was in Kivumu commune. It has eight cellules:Cyambogo, Vungu, Zegenya, Nyange, Kanyinya, Nsibo, Muganza and Murambi. Before thegenocide the Kivumu local administration offices were based there. There was Kivumudistrict court; the business centre; the Kivumu Sisters of Assumption convent; Kivumudevelopment cooperative—CODECOKI—which had flourished in the region; and Nyange parish run by the priests under the leadership of Nyundo diocese.According to detainees and survivors of the genocide, the killings in Nyange sector began onthe night of 7-8 April in Murambi cellule. The teacher, Télésphore Ndungutse, head of thelocal militia, gave the order. From 8 April, the Tutsis from Murambi and those fromneighbouring cellules began to take refuge in the parish. The commune authorities calledupon the other Tutsis hiding on their hills to come to the parish for their security. It was ameans of gathering them in one place so as to carry out the genocide. From 14 to 16 April,large-scale massacres began, ending in the demolition of Nyange church. From the first hoursof the killings, this church and its courtyard overflowed with refugees who came looking for protection from the clergy. But it was there that an unprecedented carnage unfolded, in whichmore than 2,500 people died. Because the refugees didn’t want to come out of the churchitself, in the end the building was destroyed. The church was razed to the ground bycaterpillar bulldozers when it still sheltered people who were alive or wounded during the preceding attacks. It was completely demolished, apart from rubble scattered here and there.The victims were buried and a memorial site has been erected there in their honour.The mass grave at Zegenya, which the génocidaires generally called “CND” (the NationalCouncil for Development)
remains as a symbol of suffering for the survivors. Not only didtheir tormentors throw corpses into the communal graves, they threw in people who were stillalive. The former authorities also erected roadblocks there to search for Tutsis wherever theywere hiding.
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This is a reference to the fact that from December 1993 the headquarters of the Rwandese PatrioticFront (RPF) in Kigali was in the CND building.
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