UNICEF highlights legacy of Rwandan genocide

Ten years after genocide in Rwanda left 800,000 people dead, the country's children still struggle with "the lingering impact of the atrocities", claims UNICEF Ireland.

Apollan Odetta, a survivor from the 1994 Rwandan Genocide light candles at a mass grave in Nyamata, Rwanda today

The group, which works throughout the central African nation, is helping a generation of children reclaim their lives.

UNICEF Ireland's executive director Ms Maura Quinn says "Ten years ago, the majority of Rwandan children witnessed unspeakable violence - thousands of children were victims of horrific brutality, rape and were forced to join the military,"

"Today, children in Rwanda continue to suffer the consequences of a conflict that was caused entirely by adults," she said.

Rwanda today is home to one of the world's largest proportions of child-headed households, with an estimated 101,000 children growing up on their own, either because their parents were killed in the genocide, have died from AIDS, or have been imprisoned for genocide-related crimes.

By the end of the genocide in 1994, 300,000 children had been killed and an estimated 95,000 children had been orphaned.

Eighty per cent of health workers and 50 per cent of teachers had disappeared.

By the end of 1998, as many as 500,000 young women and young girls had been raped and an estimated 700,000 children lived in extreme conditions such as orphanages, jails, on the streets or were growing up alone in child-headed households.

"A child growing up today in Rwanda faces some extreme challenges," continued Ms Quinn.

"Rwanda still has one of the world's worst child mortality rates in the world with one in five Rwandan children dying before their fifth birthday and more than 400,000 children not receiving an education."

"As the world remembers the ten-year anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, the country's children continue to live with the devastating affects of this brutal conflict," said Ms Quinn.

"We are all still accountable for supporting reconciliation and healing, and for ensuring that such atrocities never happen again," she concluded.