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	The silence of the more than 800,000 innocent victims still haunts our collective conscience by AFP / BBC / Aegis Trust Rwanda   April 2009 (AFP)   Over 20,000 Rwandans have gathered to mark 15 years since the outbreak of genocide which saw the massacre of some 800,000 people.   Rwandan President Paul Kagame laid a wreath at the hill site in Nyanza, where some 5,000 people were killed four days after a deadly attack on the United Nations Belgian contingent led them to withdraw.   In a speech marking the anniversary, Mr Kagame slammed the cowardice of an international community that "abandoned" his people.   "Nyanza marks the failure of the international community. It is the failure of humanity as a whole," said Benoit Kaboyi, the executive secretary of Ibuka, a genocide survivors organisation.   Rwanda chose Nyanza hill to commemorate the anniversary of the genocide to highlight what Mr Kaboyi also called "the bankruptcy of humanity" during the 1994 massacres.   UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said that preventing future genocide was "a collective responsibility".   "Only by meeting this challenge can we match the resolve of the survivors and truly honour the memory of those who died in Rwanda," he said. "The resounding voices of survivors touch us in ways that no other words could. Yet the silence of the more 800,000 innocent victims still haunts our collective conscience."   US President Barack Obama said the genocide was "so enormous, so daunting, that it runs the risk of becoming a statistic". He said it was important to remember that each person who died had "their own story, their own family, and their own dreams" and that remembering such events deepened the commitment to prevent "future atrocities".   Mr Kagame used the occasion to accuse the international community of cowardice and of abandoning Rwandans to their deaths.   Mr Kagame said the people of Rwanda had been "abandoned in their time of need" by the UN troops sent to protect them. "They left them to be murdered”. AFP quoted him as saying. "They left even before any shot was fired." He said the international community was "part of that history and the root causes of the genocide".   "We must remember, but life must go on," Mr Kagame told the crowd. "We must continue to build a better future."   Mar 30, 2009   The Aegis Trust is working with survivors and the Rwandan Government to mark 15th Anniversary of the genocide.   April sees the 15th year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, where 1 million people perished in 100 days. Through the years a catalogue of stories emerged to paint one of the most significant landscape of events in our lifetime: encompassing both the incomprehensible cruelty and magnificence of humanity. The people of Rwanda are determined to cherish the memory of the victims and hail the spirit of the survivors through a commemoration ceremony in Kigali in April this year.   Thousands of candles will be lit in order to reflect and meditate on the bleakness of the massacre, and highlight the indomitable spirit of the Rwandan people. We ask you to kindly make a donation to support widows and children whose lives were torn apart in 1994, as well as to continue the educational work of the Kigali Centre, which serves as a permanent memorial for those who fell in the genocide: there to ensure that a genocide of this scale will never happen again. Visit the related web page
	Sri Lanka in crisis by James Elder UNICEF   "Children are often the most vulnerable in conflict and disaster zones.The suffering of these people is real and the dangers ever present. Governments must do all they can to help protect children and civilians in conflict zones and emergency aid is vital to help those fleeing the danger".   April 2009   On any given morning most 11-year-old Sri Lankan children are seated safely behind their school desks. In the north of Sri Lanka, where there is intense fighting between Government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), 11-year-old Niveathga"s morning was spent in a shallow trench. The constant booms of shelling causing a terror no child should ever endure.   The ongoing fighting in a small strip in Sri Lanka"s north has affected many children. Currently, between 50-100,000 people remain trapped in the middle of intense fighting on a small strip of beach in Sri Lanka"s north. And the worst is yet to come.   With the high concentration of people in a small space, the number of children killed in this conflict will continue to escalate. This is a price too heavy to pay. Solutions should be sought not just to win the war, but to win peace.   For Niveathga, life has been like this for months now: constantly fleeing her home, losing the last treasures an 11-year-old may keep, swapping school for a bunker, and seeing neighbours die.   "There has been fighting everywhere," says Niveathga. "All the time I hear babies crying and people running... some are injured with blood like this," she says, moving her hands to show bleeding on her arms and legs. "Some are already dead."   It was with these images in her head that Niveathga huddled in a shallow trench with her mother, grandmother and seven-year-old brother with shells landing increasingly closer to their makeshift refuge. As another shell landed, Niveathga"s mother made the decision many around them were making, to flee.   "We got up to run," recalls Niveathga, "but my little brother was hit by shrapnel in his leg. My mother scooped him up and ran with him to try to find some help. This was the last time I saw my mother or my brother."   The United Nations Children"s Fund (UNICEF) is providing aid for those who have escaped the conflict zone and reached displaced persons camps, but without a ceasefire, no emergency aid relief can reach those trapped in the conflict zone.   UNICEF supports calls by the UN Secretary General for a cessation in fighting during which aid workers could access those most affected by the fighting and those civilians who want to leave are given the chance to do so.   Children are often the most vulnerable in conflict and disaster zones.The suffering of these people is real and the dangers ever present. Governments must do all they can to help protect children and civilians in conflict zones and emergency aid is vital to help those fleeing the danger.   A crisis for children, and a living nightmare for little Niveathga, the fighting between the fighters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the advancing troops of the Sri Lankan army continues.   Niveathga and her grandmother were able to escape the area and entered Government-controlled territory, before beginning the two-day journey to the transit site in Government-held Vavuniya. This is where they now are, but despite her grandmother"s best efforts to be positive, Niveathga fears for her mother and brother, whose whereabouts she has no idea of.   To date, over 100,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) have escaped the fighting and are in camps in Vavuniya, Jaffna and Mannar. Although UNICEF and the United Nations are strongly advocating for an early resettlement of IDPs from these largely overcrowded camps, emergency relief assistance is urgently required for these people.   Here in the camps, aid workers are desperately working to provide access to safe water, latrines and bathing facilities, nutritional support to malnourished children and their mothers, the provision of hygiene kits, emergency health kits, and temporary learning shelters and educational kits for children. There is also work being done to meet the increased needs for mother-and-child-health amid this crisis.   And, most importantly for Niveathga, work is underway to provide urgent assistance for children who have been separated from their family. But as the conflict continues there is no happy ending for Niveathga. There has been no news of her mother or injured brother for weeks.   * James Elder is Chief of Media & External Relations for UNICEF in Sri Lanka.
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