France

inaugurates

memorial

to

victims

of

Rwandan

genocide

Simplicity to convey horror. Amid the urban bustle of the quai d'Orsay in Paris, two blocks of black brass placed on a lava stone slab have stood for several days at the Esplanade Habib-Bourguiba, overlooking the Seine. The double stele by artist Grada Kilomba, commissioned in memory of the victims of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, was to be inaugurated on Tuesday, June 2, by French President Emmanuel Macron and Rwandan President Paul Kagame. The work is striking in its human scale: Such a restrained memorial is rare.

A few sober words engraved in the metal recall the tragedy: Between April 7 and July 4, 1994, more than a million men, women, and children were massacred because they were Tutsi.