US President Barack Obama on Friday remembered the killings of 800 000 people in Rwanda, marking the 18th anniversary of the genocide by vowing to ensure such evil cannot triumph again.
“The specter of this slaughter of mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters haunts us still,” Obama said in a statement.
The president said the anniversary reminded the world “of our shared responsibility to do all we can to protect civilians and to ensure that evil of this magnitude never happens again”.
“The United States grieves with the Rwandan people, and we remember those whose lives were cut short,” Obama said, but also noted that Rwanda had moved beyond the tragedy and now helped other nations in peacekeeping missions.
Around 800 000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, were murdered during the 1994 Rwandan genocide mainly by Hutu militias, according to AFP.