Mr Reynders is the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs and Defence minister. He spoke during an event to mark the 25th anniversary of the massacre, which Mr Michel attended in Kigali.
“I am thinking of the victims and those who tried to stop the killings. My thoughts also go out to the ten dead para-troopers who died working for peace and who were caught up in an explosion of hate, as well as all the other Belgians who died”, the Foreign Affairs minister wrote on the micro-blogging site Twitter on Sunday morning. The message was accompanied by a video of powerful images and he is also shown facing the camera.
In the video, the Belgian minister said the 1994 genocide was short (100 days) but incredibly deadly as at least 800,000 people were killed (around 1 million people cowardly killed). They were mainly members of the Tutsi minority. Mr Reynders described it as “one of the worst tragedies of the last century”.
“We also remember the ten dead paras, who were charged with protecting the Prime Minister and who died caught up in an explosion of hate and resentment”. “We also want to express our strong solidarity”, he concluded.
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