Kibeho Pilgrimage Rwanda

At no place in Rwanda does the spiritual struggle meet so intently as in Kibeho, a place that fills regularly with thousands of faithful who walk a hundred miles to get there.

Kibeho is a small town in south Rwanda, which became known outside of that country because of reported apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ occurring between 1981 and 1989. The Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ reportedly appeared to some teenagers in Kibeho in 1981, as Our Lady of Kibeho. These visions were accompanied by intense reactions: crying, tremors, and comas. On August 19, 1982, those who saw the visions reported gruesome sights (rivers of blood, sliced heads, etc.) which some today regard as an ominous foreshadowing of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, and particularly in that specific location in 1995.

Catholic Bishop Augustin Misago of Gikongoro, Rwanda approved public devotion linked to the apparitions on 1988-08-15 and declared their authenticity on 2001-06-29

After the 1994 genocide, Kibeho was the site of an internally displaced person (IDP) refugee camp, with many of the Hutu refugees suspected of having participated in the genocide. The camp was the largest in Rwanda, spreading 9 square kilometers and containing between 80,000 and 100,000 people. In mid - April 1995, elements of the Tutsi - led Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), announced they would close the camp, with the aim of forcibly separating known Genocidaires from those who would be sent home. As the camp was closed, tensions mounted and RPA troops opened fire on some of the remaining refugees. Australian and Zambian troops of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) and staff from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) witnessed the massacre. Many of these were killed in the same school in which the apparitions had occurred; one of the children who reported the vision was even one of the victims. The local bishop, accused by many of complicity in the genocide himself, recognized officially on June 29, 2001 three cases as authentic. The church Notre-Dame des Douleurs (Our Lady of Sorrows) was built in Kibeho, supported by Pallottines