Rwanda | Nyaruguru: Thousands of believers flock Kibeho to celebrate the Assumption day

Close to 30,000 Catholics from within and outside Rwanda on Wednesday flocked the Kibeho pilgrimage site in the South of the country, for a mass of the feast of the Assumption, a day Catholics say Virgin Mary, mother to Jesus Christ, ascended to heaven.

Like many other believers, 51 year-old Espérance Mujawimana, a mother of four, trekked three days for over 200 kilometers from Janja Parish, in the Diocese of Ruhengeri, Northern Province of Rwanda, to Kibeho.

“This is a holy land. I have come here to get in contact with the Holy Virgin Mary and say ‘thank you’ for countless miracles she has performed in my life,” said Mujawimana, whose first arrival at Kibeho dates back to November 28, 2011.

Extending thanks to the Virgin Mary, that’s what has equally brought Eric Cimpaye, 23, from neighbouring Burundi’s Northern Province of Kayanza.

“I have been healthy so far and I have done well with courses at school. So the Virgin Mary deserves my thanks for that and that’s what I am here for,” said a smiling Cimpaye, a student at Gatara High School, who last came to Kibeho in 2009.

Although all yearlong Catholics converge to Kibeho for prayers, Assumption day gets higher numbers. Most of the tourists dub it holy to walk to Kibeho while others from very far away board to the place.

The hilly, green-landscaped Kibeho first came on to records in November 1981 when the Holy Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango, by then high school students.

After years of a meticulous inquiry, the Catholic Church ruled out, on 29 June 2001, that what had happened to the three ladies at Kibeho were “authentic apparitions” from the Holy Virgin Mary.

In one apparition thought to have happened on 15 August 1982, the visionaries claim to have seen the Holy Virgin Mary crying, urging people to repent and change for the better because of their then “ likeness of evil, and continuous disobedience to God’s Commandments”.

Figures from the Catholic Church at Kibeho point to an around 100,000 people turnout in the year 2011 alone, hailing from different countries worldwide − a number ten times the annual pilgrims’ number as of 1982, a year after Kibeho apparitions had started.

Taking advantage of the increasing number of pilgrims, Nyaruguru district officials are also exploring ways and means to expand the district coffers through a sustainable religion-centered tourism.

And Mayor François Habitegeko was recently in Israel − a country with a booming religion-oriented tourism − on a five-day “fact-finding mission”.

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