Belgian Peacekeepers Memorial

The Belgian Peacekeepers Memorial was launched at Camp Kigali and opened on 7 April 2000, commemorating the ten Belgian United Nations blue beret soldiers who were killed guarding the Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyamana (1953-94), Rwanda’s first and only female Prime Minister, at the beginning of the 1994 Genocide.   When armed guards invaded her home, the soldiers were disarmed and taken to the military base where they were brutally killed.  This incident forced the United Nations to withdraw the Belgian troops.  

The memorial has ten stone pillars, each one with horizontal cuts to represent how long each soldier lived.  The building has been maintained with gunshot holes in place from that fateful day.