Thread by @greaterbayo

Travelogue: The Belgian Monument For The 10 Commandos in Rwanda

One of the monuments I visited was the Belgian Monument for the 10 Belgian United Nations peacekeepers.

In April 1994, 10 Commandos of Belgian origin were ambushed during the Rwandan War.

It was a day after the Rwandan president’s plane was shot down on April 6, 1994. They surrendered their weapons in exchange for the promise to allow them to go to the UN Base.

The Hutu militia however took them to a military camp where over 100 soldiers attacked them. The brave Belgian Commandos had smuggled 2 small arms and with that resisted for many hours while waiting for help which never came.

They were all murdered during the attack which took place where I took these pictures. The bullet holes and pock marks are all too visible on the building. Their deaths were indeed brutal and despicable too.

Apparently they were first taunted, intimidated and beaten, before being executed. Some were killed right away, the rest made a stand and held out in a three-hour siege but were finally overpowered and killed by grenades and machine-gun fire.

The mutilated bodies of the Belgian soldiers were then dumped in a pile at the morgue of a nearby hospital.

The 10 pillars of stones are of Belgian origin. They are not polished as they represent life as it is. They are larger than men so the Commandos will never be forgotten. They are arranged in a circle as a sign of cohesion of the 10 Commandos.

They are identical since death does not differentiate file and rank. They were carved with the ages of each of the 10 Commandos and broken at the top representing the brutal end to their lives. The base of each stone is engraved with the initials of each men.

I looked at the lock marks on the wall, imagined what the three-hour siege could have been like and could only mutter, “What bravery! What a sacrifice!”

Bayo Adeyinka

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