The guardians of Rwanda's dead

As the world marks Holocaust Day, Martin Stott meets Rwandans determined to preserve the memory of their relatives slaughtered during the 1994 genocide.

Forty-eight year old Emanuel Nurangira is one of just four survivors of one of the worst incidents of the Rwandan genocide at Gikongoro.

On this southern hilltop near Butare, in what at the time was a newly-built school, 50,000 Tutsis were systematically murdered.

Dancilla Nyirabazungu was pregnant when the Ntarama killing took place

A deep indentation on Emmanuel's forehead shows where the Hutu militia shot him. He survived by hiding under a pile of corpses.

A year later people in this area began to deny the genocide had happened. Emmanuel and others exhumed the bodies.

Most were reburied but 800 were left preserved in lime on public display.

"They killed my wife and children, my brothers and sisters. Then they started saying there was no genocide. The bodies we've left in these classrooms are the proof. The world needs to see this," he said.

Massacred

Inside lying on benches are the limed remains of dozens of bodies including some children. The smell is overwhelming. Some have still got their hair and there is still some flesh on these bodies.

This is one of several places in Rwanda where survivors have refused to bury their dead.

Memory is very important because it is the foundation of the prevention of genocide in the future generation. Francois Gurambe

The church at Ntarama, west of Kigali sits in a beautiful woody glade, but within its walls lies more horror.

Hundreds of skulls and bones are piled at the back of the abandoned church. Bloodied clothes lie strewn on the floor.

Dancilla Nyirabazungu says the remains include those of her husband, two children and 15 other relatives massacred here. But she refuses to move them.

She says that there is no way that she can come here and show me the house and tell me that there is genocide here without showing me the proof.

Singing with killers

"The same way you can catch a thief by getting him red-handed... this is the proof of the genocide." says Dancilla.

She was hiding in this church when the militia attacked. They threw grenades through the windows and hacked people to death with machetes.

Though heavily pregnant, she was shielded by dead bodies. Today she sits on the church step alongside the 10-year-old son Eric she was carrying at the time.

It's Eric's future that concerns Stephen Smith from the British-based Genocide education charity, the Aegis trust.

" My real fears are for the next generation. The ones that have just been through this - victims and perpetrators, this has hurt badly. I don't think there's going to be an immediate outburst of violence. The real fear is for the next generation," he says .

In the meantime in the new church building where she now worships, Dancilla has to sing and pray alongside some of the killers who have been released from prison pending trial.

This is a tiny, poor, country. Rwandans have to live alongside each other - perpetrators and victims.

Memorial centre

The government is trying to drive forward reconciliation but doesn't the memory of the genocide, the bodies in the churches and classrooms hinder the process?

"Memory is very important because it is the foundation of the prevention of genocide in the future generation," says Francois Gurambe, the chairman of the national survivor group Ibuka or Remember.

" We think that remembrance is important in the construction of a united society because you can't have a united society without justice. Justice means first of all truth and truth is not possible without remembrance."

Rwandans want a proper memorial centre to be opened for genocide victims

Back in Murambi, Emmanuel is waiting for the international community to finance and complete a genocide education centre at the campus where so many were killed.

The dead there will then be preserved in dignity; the genocide permanently memorialised.

Until then he will continue to force himself up here every morning to check that dogs haven't disturbed the bodies and to put fresh lime on those that are decomposing.

"Once a proper memorial centre is here I will be released, I can move to another part of Rwanda, get a job - start a new life," he tells me.