Sports Events in Rwanda

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Stade Amahoro, or Amahoro Stadium, means 'Peace Stadium'. This multi-purpose venue serves as the national stadium for events such as soccer and athletics. It also hosts music events and sometimes memorial ceremonies for the victims of the Genocide. Amahoro actually served as a safe haven for as many as 12,000 Tutsis fleeing the barbaric massacres that took place across Kigali in 1994. It was being used as a base by UN troops from Bangladesh at the time and thousands of refugees survived due to their protection. Sadly over a million Tutsis did not.

The military head of the UNAMIR (UNITED NATIONS ASSISTANCE MISSION FOR RWANDA) mission, Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, describes the Stadium in his book ‘Shake Hands With the Devil’:

"When the war started the place filled up and at one point we were up to 12,000 in here. Twelve thousand people trying to live in here. So you get this latent smoke that hangs in here. All you see is people and clothes and so the place looks absolutely, totally out of control. It became, in probably the most pejorative way, something like a concentration camp. We were out there protecting them, but while we were out there, they were inside dying. And the stench, the stench was so powerful you actually had to force yourself not to puke or anything."