Rwanda: soldiers suspected of rape and ill-treatment in a district of Kigali

Text by: Laure Broulard

Rwandan military justice announces the opening of an investigation into accusations of violence against civilians in a slum in Kigali. This week, local press reported several testimonies from residents of this poor neighborhood in the Nyarutarama sector, according to which soldiers on patrol raped women and beat men.

Publicity

From our correspondent in Kigali

In a statement published on Saturday, the Defense Ministry ensures that five soldiers have already been detained, without specifying the charges against them and announces that at the end of the investigation, a trial will be held in the shanty town itself, and in public. On Friday, shortly after the case was unveiled by the local press, soldiers were deployed to the area to interview alleged victims.

According to several accounts, soldiers who were patrolling the neighborhood had raped women and beat residents in the past two weeks. Difficult however to determine the figures and the precise circumstances of this violence.

This slum, which some Rwandans call "Bannyahe", which means " the place where I can defecate " in Kinyarwanda, has in any case been regularly on the front page of the Rwandan press for over a year. Indeed, according to a development plan of the city of Kigali, these informal dwellings should soon give way to a brand new building complex. More than 1,000 families are expected to be expropriated. But some reject the rehousing solution that has been proposed to them and have gone to court.

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• Rwanda