An African human rights groups has accused Rwandan priest, Fr Emmanuel Uwayezu, now working in a Catholic parish near Florence, Italy, of being responsible for the deaths of 80 students during the genocide of 1994. According to the nine page report from Africa Rights, Fr Uwayezu was responsible for the death of 80 students at the Kibeho College of Arts in the Southern Province, on May 7 1994.
"African Rights is calling on the authorities in Italy and in Rwanda, and on the Catholic Church in Rwanda and in Italy, to carry out their own investigations into the serious charges contained in this report," reads the report titled Father Emmanuel Uwayezu in Italy: The Massacre of His Students at Kibeho College of Arts, May 7 1994.
The report accuses Uwayezu, who it says has "modified" his names to Emmanuel Mihigo Wayezu, hatched hatred among the students at the school to which he had been headmaster two years in the run up to the genocide.
Uwayezu, a Hutu, fled when Hutu militiamen surrounded the Mercy Mary of Kibeho school on May 7, 1994, while his students were shot and hacked to death, the group said, as quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald. Police who were meant to be protecting the students joined in the killing, African Rights said.
"The massacre started immediately. Except for a handful of survivors, most of the students perished, killed by the guns and grenades of the gendarmes or the spears, axes and machetes of the militiamen," it said.
"Fr Uwayezu returned to Kibeho several days after the massacre to arrange for the gendarmes to provide military training to Hutu male students so they could seek out survivors," African Rights added.
The report accuses the priest of being seen, throughout the genocide, in the company of some of the virulent masterminds of the genocide, including the then prefet of Gikongoro, Laurent Bucyibaruta.
Fr Uwayezu becomes the second Catholic priest, suspected of participating in the genocide, to be found living in Italy after Athanase Seromba, who was also working as a priest in the same region of Florence.
Fr Seromba has since been sentenced to life in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for his role in the killing of thousands of members of his congregation who had taken refuge at Nyange Parish where he was the vicar.
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Source (CTHN)
SV (ED)