Morocco takes part in commemoration of Rwanda genocide

Head of the Moroccan government Aziz Akhannouch represented King Mohammed VI in the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide.

A remembrance event was also held in the national library in Rabat where participants recalled the atrocities against civilian Tutsis.

In 1994, some 800,000 Tutsis were killed by armed Hutus tearing apart the country in one of the bloodiest massacres of the 20th century.

At the commemoration ceremony, Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame declared a week of national morning with flags flown at half-mast.

The ceremony was attended by South African and Ethiopian leaders as well as former US president Bill Clinton who acknowledged his administration’s failure to stop the genocide.

Rwandan authorities have long blamed the international community for ignoring warnings about the killings, and some Western leaders have expressed regret.

“It was the international community which failed all of us, whether from contempt or cowardice,” Kagame said in a speech after lighting a flame of remembrance and laying a wreath at a memorial site holding the remains of 250,000 genocide victims in Kigali.