Nyarubuye Catholic Church is located in the Eastern province of Rwanda. 

• buried

no indoor photographs were allowed. And the church was inaccessable. 

In April 1994, shortly after the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana triggered the genocide, thousands of Tutsi civilians fled to the Nyarubuye Catholic Church and convent in southeastern Rwanda. They sought sanctuary there — as many had done in previous episodes of ethnic violence — believing the church would be a place of refuge and protection.

On April 14, 1994, militias known as the Interahamwe, along with local officials and ordinary citizens, surrounded the church complex. Over the next two to three days, they massacred an estimated 5,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter there.

Victims were hacked to death with machetes, beaten with clubs, or shot. Women were often subjected to sexual violence before being killed. Human hearts were barbecued, and infants were thrown into the letreen. 

The church and nearby school buildings became slaughter sites, and for months afterward, bodies were left strewn across the grounds.