Between April 7 and 11, 1994, over 2,000 Tutsi sought refuge at the ETO compound in Kicukiro, trusting Belgian UN troops to protect them. On April 11, after ten Belgian peacekeepers were killed elsewhere, the soldiers withdrew, leaving the refugees to the waiting Interahamwe. Moments later, militias forced the Tutsi to march about two kilometers to a field in Nyanza, where they were brutally massacred with guns, grenades, and machetes. 

Days later, Rwandan Patriotic Front soldiers discovered the bodies—men, women, and children—some recognizing their own relatives. 

Approximately 4,000 victims are buried at Nyanza Memorial. 

Today the memorial stands as a reminder of their suffering and of the international community’s failure to protect them. Each year, commemoration ceremonies are held there on April 11, marking one of the earliest and most symbolic massacres of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.