The resting place of more than 800,000 people killed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide is among three continents added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, as the United Nations cultural framework ends a moratorium on reviewing sites commemorating human suffering.
The sites of Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi and Bisesero in Rwanda commemorating massacres of basically Tutsi victims “have just been inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List,” the organization posted Wednesday on social media.
The four sites in Rwanda commemorate the genocide that largely targeted the Tutsi minority, but also moderate Hutus who were shot dead, beaten or massacred by Hutu rebels between April and July 1994.
“This landmark resolution will help safeguard memory, counter denial and global genocide prevention efforts. #NeverAgain,” Rwandan government spokeswoman Yolande Makolo posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The UNESCO resolution also welcomed, through Naphthali Ahishakiye, executive secretary of Ibuka, the agreement representing genocide survivors.
“This will raise awareness around the world about the genocide committed in Rwanda against the Tutsis,” he told AFP news agency in Kigali.
Also included in the list are World War I cemeteries in Belgium and France, as well as a former torture center in Argentina.
So far, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan are the memorial sites inscribed on the World Heritage List, heavily monitored through the UN cultural agency.
At an assembly of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Wednesday, UNESCO member states agreed to add to the list sites of genocide in Rwanda and World War I, after uploading Argentina’s torture monument on Tuesday.
A UNESCO assembly in 2018 delayed the addition of memorial sites to the list while the company debated whether the heritage list was an applicable tool for memory sites related to atrocities and conflicts.
The firm said member states agreed in early 2023 that those sites can play a key role in peacebuilding, which is UNESCO’s main focus, and that the committee would read about the nominations of the three sites.