WORK is continuing on the exhumation of bodies after a mass grave containing the remains of at least 5,000 victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide was discovered on Wednesday, local officials reported yesterday.

Ibuka, an umbrella organisation of genocide survivors’ associations, has appealed for Rwandans to come forward with information that may help to uncover other mass graves.

The latest find was made in the Gatsibo District of eastern Rwanda in a pit that was reportedly dug in the 1970s for water supply.

Gatsibo Mayor Richard Gsana said that exhumations could take up to three weeks, but had paused to allow the relatives of the victims to prepare themselves to find the remains of their missing loved ones.

More than a million people are believed to have been killed in the Rwandan genocide which involved the mass slaughter of Tutsis, Twas and moderate Hutus between April and July 1994 during the country’s civil war.

As many as 70 percent of the Tutsi population are believed to have been killed. The remains of 118,049 victims were discovered last year in 17 districts across the central African country, according to the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide