Sixteen injured as grenade attacks hit Kigali »
Sixteen people were injured in two simultaneous grenade attacks in Kigali last night at around 7pm. The attacks happened in Kimironko, close to the taxi rank, and in Kinamba, near the Gisozi Genocide memorial. The bombings occur less than one month after similar attacks in central Kigali. Only on Wednesday, President Paul Kagame blamed the [...]
Match of the day »
I headed out to Rubona, 35 kilometres east of Kigali, last Saturday to watch a football match. Stoke City were playing Arsenal at the Britannia Stadium in Stoke-upon-Trent in an English premiership match.
A contact from London was in Rwanda for one week to see how feasible it would be to broadcast live football on a [...]
Three hours in Kigali »
Some 26 years after Mitterand, the French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited Kigali today for a total of around three hours. The newly appointed French Ambassador to Rwanda, Laurent Contini, had already stolen much of Sarko’s thunder by announcing the big news earlier in the day; the French school in Kigali is set to re-open in September [...]
On the tantalite trail with the knicker bomber »
The Liverpool Echo uses CCTV camera footage to trace the 4350 mile journey of “disgruntled Rwandan businessman” Claude Rubagire as he travelled from Burundi to a factory in Liverpool in March, 2009. The businessman came armed with possibly the world’s most ingenious improvised (non) explosive device – the panty bomb.
For a year Rubagire had tried, [...]
Returning to Rwanda after 16 years »
In the wake of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, an estimated 2 million Hutus fled across the border to DR Congo. Nearly 16 years later, some of these Rwandans are coming home under a reconciliation and repatriation programme sponsored by the United Nations and the Rwanda government. Sorious Samura reports on the returnees for Al Jazeers’a [...]
Rwanda changed my life, but not as much as Uganda »
Go online and read about Rwanda for more than 5 minutes and I guarantee you’ll learn three things very, very quickly – Rwanda has been “completely transformed”, “plastic bags are banned” and “the streets are clean”. These observations are factually accurate and many Rwandans are rightly proud of them. However, there’s one other, perhaps less [...]
That’s one whole lot of cute »
Between 6 – 12 visitors, paying $500 per head, are allowed to visit Rwanda’s famous Gorillas in the Virunga National Park per day. I’ve yet to visit, but I plan to even with the high price tag and one hour time limit. Fortunately, a good many of the visitors who have made the trek took [...]
How to shop at Kimironko market »
If you want to go shopping at the excellent Kimironko covered market, east of central Kigali and you don’t look Rwandan there are two rules you might want to follow. First, hire a guy to watch your car. You won’t find this too tricky as you’ll be mobbed by potential employees as soon as you [...]
Rwanda retrospective »
This picture of Watsui dancers in Rwanda is part of a fascinating series of photos from 1920’s through to the 1950’s in DR Congo and Rwanda. Flickr user Lucien has very kindly uploaded photographs taken by his grandparents along with a number of images by other photographers from the same period. His grandparents travelled repeatedly [...]
What makes Rwanda happy? »
During his recent trip to Rwanda, photojournalist Simon Sticker asked his photo-workshop trainees the question: What makes you happy? Fortunately for us, he filmed their answers.
The idea was inspired by the series ‘50 people, one question’ which made that before in London and a couple of cities in the US. And it was interesting to [...]
