The Virgin Mary prophesied the 1994 Rwandan genocide

From 28 November 1981 to 28 November 1989, the Virgin Mary appeared to three young girls from the village of Kibeho (Rwanda), entrusting them with messages of prayer and forgiveness, and prophesying the Rwandan genocide of 1994. After the apparitions were recognised in 2001, Kibeho became the "African Lourdes". Since the first chapel was built in 1992, the shrine has become very important, attracting 500,000 visitors annually.

Representation of Our Lady of Sorrows. One of the messages from Kibeho is the call for the practice of the rosary of Our Lady of Sorrows to increase / © CC-BY-SA 4.0/Haeferl

Reasons to believe:

On 15 August 1982, the apparition prophesied to the three seers the genocide that would ravage the country twelve years later (800,000 dead in three months, including 10,000 in the parish church of Kibeho), in very graphic terms: "A river of blood, people killing each other, corpses left unburied, heads decapitated."

During the years that the apparitions lasted, the three seers were constantly monitored by several doctors who observed and examined them at will and gathered a great amount of scientific data, before and after their ecstasies. The psychic equilibrium of the three visionaries has been absolutely established.

The apparition were at first private, then took place in public settings after a few months, with greater scrutiny on the part of yhe witness or simple observers, preventing the possibility of deception.

At the end of the first apparition, the school's teachers and pupils were authorised to carry out all sorts of tests on the seer Alphonsine Mumureke to check whether her ecstasies were genuine, which was confirmed by numerous witnesses, believers and non-believers alike. Many credible witnesses heard her speak languages unknown to her while she was in ecstasy: French, English, Kinyarwanda and several African dialects.

It is interesting to note that the three seers were not part of the same group of friends. The third visionary, Marie-Claire, was one of the most hostile, criticising Alphonsine the most and "turning the other pupils against her". On 2 March 1982, when she too saw and heard the Virgin, Marie-Claire believed that the apparitions were real.

The young visionaries were unaware that Marian apparitions had already occurred in history, and consequently had no knowledge of the subject. However, the Virgin's messages were very similar to previous, historical and approved apparitions, namely a call to deeper prayer, forgiveness and peace, the building of a chapel, the urgent need for conversion, recitation of the rosary, and the Chaplet of Our Lady of Sorrows.

Visually consistent with other apparitions recognised since the 16th century, Our Lady of Kibeho is devoid of outrageous elements or surprising particularities: "a beautiful woman, neither white nor black, floating above the ground", wearing a seamless dress and a veil covering her hair.

The "Mother of the Word", Our Lady of Kibeho, also conforms to the great Mariophanies, from both the linguistic and psychological points of view: she spoke in the local dialect (as at Lourdes, for example) and wept (as at La Salette) on 15 August 1982, to the surprise of the visionaries, who would never have imagined such a thing.

As at Fatima, the visionaries testified to visions of hell, but also of heaven and purgatory, without a single detail of their accounts departing from doctrinal orthodoxy and raising doubt with the Church authorities. In other words, the messages of the Virgin are consistent with Catholic dogma and theology.

The Catholic Church is very cautious when it comes to apparitions. It has only endorsed the first three visionaries, after an extensive and rigorous investigation, out of the fifteen or so people who began to claim visions of Mary. In 1988, the Bishop of Butare, Jean-Baptiste Gahamanyi, authorised public worship of Our Lady of Kibeho, and on 29 June 2001, Bishop Augustin Misago (Diocese of Gikongoro, Rwanda) published the decree recognising the apparitions.

The visionaries' lifestyle after the apparitions testifies to their moral uprightness, their fidelity to Christ, their sincerity and their selflessness. With their intense spiritual lives, these three women are exemplary witnesses to God.

Summary:

On 28 November 1981, Alphonsine Mumureke, born in 1965, a pupil at the Kibeho High School (a Catholic boarding school founded by a parish priest and run by the Benebikira Sisters), run by three Rwandan nuns, saw "a lady" of incredible beauty in the grounds of the school, who introduced herself as the "Mother of the Word ". The apparition floated above the ground and didn't have shoes on. She was wearing a seamless dress with a veil over her hair.

The young girl was shaken: a Catholic at heart, she had never experienced anything like this and, at the time, was even unaware of the existence of other Marian apparitions. Those around her greeted her story with doubt and suspicion. They wanted to know what was wrong with her, whether she was ill, whether madness had overtaken her... Yet she had never suffered from the slightest mental disorder. Some people thought she was under the spell of a sorcerer. They began to watch her closely.

The next day, the Virgin Mary appeared again, and then every Saturday from December onwards. Our Lady always looked the same, and her message was a sober call to prayer and evangelical living. The "Lady" gave her first messages: to pray sincerely and to be converted as a matter of urgency, because the country was threatened by great misfortune if people did not return to God.

On 12 January 1982, a second pupil at the Kibeho school, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka, born in 1964, also saw the Virgin. Nothing had prepared this kind, reserved young girl to such an unusual encounter. This time, Alphonsine was no longer the only one to recount these visionary experiences and describe these ecstasies. In the village of Kibeho, people began to talk and inquire about the apparitions. The sisters at the school informed the diocesan clergy. Some began to pay close attention to the testimony of the two pupils and the Virgin's messages. Especially after the apparitions took place in public. At first, a few dozen people surrounded the visionaries. After a few weeks, this number rose to over 10,000!

On 2 March 1982, it was Marie-Claire Mukangango's turn to see the Mother of God. A schoolgirl slightly older than Alphonsine and Nathalie, she had never heard of this kind of phenomenon. Of course, she knew and studied with the other two seers, but until then she had not received the slighest indication that she'd become a seer herself. Marie-Claire's case deserves special mention: she was he one who criticised Alphonsine the most and "turned the other pupils against her", referring to her classmate as being possessed by evil spirits. On the evening of 2 March, Marie-Claire's complete change of heart was known to all.

Marie-Claire last saw the Virgin Mary on 15 September 1982. Married in 1987 to a well-known journalist, she died with her husband during the 1992 massacres. It was to her that the Virgin had given this message: "Repent! Repent! Repent!"

On 15 August 1982, the apparition delivered a prophetic message to the three seers: the country would experience unprecedented suffering if the inhabitants did not convert: massacres, bloodshed, beheadings, etc. This was the announcement of the Rwandan genocide perpetrated against the Tutsis. Rwanda's collective memory has retained these powerful words, spoken a dozen years before the tragic genocide.

On 15 August 1983, and again on 28 November, the Virgin asked Alphonsine to have a chapel built in her honour. This message had a positive impact. The diocesan authorities discreetly investigated the case of the three seers, questioning the lay teachers of Kibeho, their parents, family members, classmates and so on. These extremely thorough investigations didn't reveal the slightest shadow over the seers' testimonies.

It was at this point that a phenomenon sometimes observed during other major apparitions began to occur: other young people, both boys and girls, in turn alleged similar apparitions. Soon there were fifteen or so of them claiming to have seen Mary's presence in Kibeho. This time, the bishop of the diocese was notified. A canonical commission of enquiry was set up to curb potential hysteria and disturbances to public order, and also to ensure that the apparitions of Alphonsine, Nathalie and Marie-Claire were kept separate from the new alleged ones.

The conclusion was positive: the first three seers mentioned above were authenticated, and only those three (which does not mean that the others were systematically rejected: the investigators may have lacked information or theological difficulties may have arisen in the course of the investigation, etc.). Additionally, only the public apparitions were taken into consideration.

In 1988, the Bishop of Butare authorised public veneration of Our Lady of Kibeho and these apparitions became the only approved ones in Africa. Thanks to the donations and efforts of the local people and clergy, the first chapel was built in 1992. From that time on, the new shrine welcomed thousands of people with virtually no accomodations. It quickly became knwon as the "African Lourdes".

On 1 January 1988, in the wake of the Kibeho apparitions, the archbishop of Kigali consecrated Rwanda to the Virgin Mary.

As Mary had predicted, the genocide of 1994 did not spare Kibeho: 10,000 people were murdered in the town's parish church. It was not until 1996 that peace returned to this African land. The shrine then reopened its doors. The bishop installed a chaplain during the summer of 1996. Pilgrims slowly returned. Of the three official seers, only Nathalie remained on site until July 1994 (the year of the genocide), when the diocesan bishop asked her to leave urgently for safety reasons. Nathalie finally returned to Kibeho in December 1996, after months of exile. Since then, she has been welcoming pilgrims and joined them in prayer.

On 29 June 2001, in Gikongoro cathedral, Bishop Misago celebrated a solemn mass in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio to Rwanda and all the country's bishops. During the ceremony, he acknowledged the authenticity of the apparitions in Kibeho. The modest village became a place of international pilgrimage. Every year, 500,000 people travel to the "land of a thousand hills" to pray and meditate at this shrine.

The Kibeho apparitions continued until 28 November 1989, the date on which Alphonsine declared having had her last public apparition. After obtaining her bachelor's degree in theology in June 2003, this visionary became a Poor Clare nun at the convent of Sainte-Claire in Abidjan, taking the name of Sister Alphonsine of the Glorious Cross.

Patrick Sbalchiero

Beyond reasons to believe:

The human balance and spiritual wisdom of the visionaries, the clarity and accuracy of the Virgin's messages, and the extraordinary growth of the Shrine of Kibeho all testify to the authenticity of the events.

Going further:

Our Lady of Kibeho: Mary Speaks to the World from the Heart of Africa by Immaculee Ilibagiza, Hay House LLC; Illustrated edition (April 1, 2010)

More information:

Apparitions of Kibeho: A Divine Mother's Plea for an Unwavering Faith, Sincere Conversion and Unceasing Prayer by Gilbert Biziyaremye, Independently published (February 24, 2021)
The Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary Today by Rene Laurentin, Ignatius Press; Revised edition (January 1, 1990)