Rwanda 2004

Résumé du livre

In 2004 South African photographer Pieter Hugo was astonished by a photograph used to illustrate an article on the Rwandan genocide. The picture showed a human skull on an altar inside the Catholic church at Ntarama, south of Kigali. Ten years previously an estimated 5,000 Tutsis were massacred there by government soldiers, civilians and the feared Interahamwe; across Rwanda many victims had believed, mistakenly, that churches would provide secure refuge. But what most arrested Hugo was the fact that a decade after the killings (the photograph was made in 2004) the evidence, remains and detritus of genocide were still to be seen. He resolved to visit, 'photographing and contemplating' the sites of Rwanda's carnage. These photographs, taken a decade later, are the results of that journey. They offer a forensic view of some of the sites of mass execution and graves that stand as lingering memorials to the many thousands of people slaughtered, and present, as Hugo writes, "a glimpse of what I saw there before the reburials took place."