Annalena Baerbock (General Assembly President…

Over 35,000 people—women and men, children and grandparents—crowded into that church, hoping for safety in a house of God.

Within a week, militias arrived—

armed with guns, machetes, and clubs—with one shared, chilling purpose: to literally butcher their neighbors,

their friends,

their compatriots.

They killed relentlessly—day and night—leaving only 18 people alive.

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Across Rwanda, similar horrors unfolded—including for our distinguished guest speakers today, Serge Gasore and Marcel Mutsindashyaka, who both survived the massacres as young children, boys, and who now work to support fellow survivors.

Their stories—and the stories of so many others—are enshrined at the Kigali Genocide Memorial.

On that hilltop, rose bushes grow above the graves of more than 250,000 victims.

An astounding number, yet only a fraction of the more than one million people murdered over roughly 100 days.

Over one million children were orphaned.

Hundreds of thousands of women and girls were subjected to horrifying forms of sexual violence, leaving deep and lasting scars—both visible and invisible.

Because as the Memorial makes clear—like hardly any other—genocide is always fought over the bodies of women.

Today we remember these victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

We honor the lives stolen.
We mourn the families shattered.
We acknowledge the suffering that endures.

But 7 April is more than remembrance, more than a warning.

It is an obligation—that "never again" cannot remain a hollow refrain.

It must be a constant commitment—renewed not in words, but in action.

Because, as we know, the genocide against the Tutsi was not the first.

It occurred decades after the Holocaust—and after the world pledged, through the Genocide Convention, that such crimes must never happen again.

And yet, they did.

As we approach the 80th anniversary of the Genocide Convention, we must confront an uncomfortable truth:

Prevention is not passive.

It requires action—early and decisive.

This responsibility rests with all of us.

And in this regard, let me return to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which makes unmistakably clear that remembrance calls on us to confront the past with candor—in order to face the present with courage.

Because as we have also seen in the video, the warning signals were there.

As the Memorial shows, the seeds of genocide were planted decades earlier, when colonial rulers sowed division between Hutu and Tutsi.

Discrimination was entrenched.
Hatred was normalized.
Violence was incited.

And when the killings began, warnings fell upon deaf ears.

Violence was tolerated—at times even enabled—by the Church as massacres took place in Nyarubuye and elsewhere.

Even the urgent appeals of United Nations peacekeepers on the ground went unanswered.

Instead of reinforcement, the peacekeeping force was drastically reduced at the very moment it was needed most.

So let us never forget that prevention is not passive, that it requires action, from all of us, early and decisive, and that this responsibility rests with all of us.

As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said during his visit to the Genocide Memorial, "We failed in Rwanda. We failed in Srebrenica. But you are writing a different future."

So our task is to ask ourselves: are we truly writing a different future?

Because the roots of genocide endure—worldwide.

We see them in current reports of systematic killings in different parts of the world that bear the hallmarks of genocide.

In the rise of hate speech that pits one group against another.

In government policies that strip people of their dignity.

These are the first steps on a dangerous path that inevitably leads to dehumanization.

So, our joint task is clear:

To counter hate speech.

To stand against discrimination.

And to prevent dehumanization—wherever it occurs.

In Kinyarwanda they have a word for that—kubabarira—meaning forgiveness, and the deeper call to empathy.

We see it in the resilience of the Rwandan people:

Through forgiveness and outreach—healing wounds and diffusing lingering tensions.

Through the International Criminal Tribunal and especially the community-based Gacaca courts—pursuing accountability and truth.

Through strong legal frameworks—confronting the dangers of genocide denial and ideology.

And through the leadership of women—recognizing that lasting and inclusive peace depends on women's full and equal participation.

So, ladies and gentlemen,

Let us carry that word, kubabarira, with us—not only as a reminder of the resilience of the Rwandan people but also as a call to speak out whenever we hear language that diminishes another's humanity.

For genocide does not begin with violence.

It begins with words".