Samaritan Purse—an evangelical Christian humanitarian organization that targets people in physical need as a fundamental part of their Christian missionary work based on the New Testament’s Parable of the Good Samaritan, Joined Rwandans in commemorating the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi
The organization was represented by the group of 50, who toured memorial sites across the country for first hand on the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi 20 years ago.
The visitors called upon international organizations to draw lessons from what happen in Rwanda and prevent such from further affecting humanity worldwide after visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Gisozi in Kigali on April 28, 2014.
“The international organizations, nations including the United Nations have learnt to never turn their backs on any conflicting countries and stand against conflicts that can cause loss of lives,” Amy Lowery said.
Lowery said one lesson the world can draw from this would be to never turn your back when you see something that’s wrong. If there is something evil, you cannot afford to look away as it happened here in 1994, you have to stand against it.
The visitors attributed the country’s economic and social gains to unity and reconciliation.
Eric Lapointe, from Maryland, said the way Rwandan community value togetherness, is evident that they have decided to keep memories genocide a live, overcome and live together past the hurt and the pain. It is an amazing thing to see. More has been achieved than most people would expect in 20 years.
Lapoite said that with the ongoing conflicts in various parts of the world, Rwanda’s reunification model can be used for other countries as it has been proven to be successful.
“We hope that people across the world can see Rwanda as model for how to reunify, reconcile after atrocities considering there is conflict in various parts of the world. The world cannot ignore this, it will happen again somewhere else and we cannot just turn a blind eye and pretend that this is not happening elsewhere,” he added.
Rwanda commemorates the 20th 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi under this years’ theme “Remember Unite Renew”.
Samaritan’s Purse works in more than 100 countries around the world. International headquarters are in Boone, North Carolina, with additional U.S. facilities in Charlotte and North Wilkesboro, N.C. Affiliate offices are in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Hong Kong, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Field offices are located in some 20 countries across five continents.