Fra. Vjeko's Untimely Death

Murder

On January 31, 1998, Father Vjeko Curic was assassinated while in Kigali. Neither the identities of the criminals nor the circumstances of the murder are known. No arrests have been made in the case of Fra. Vjeko's murder. He has been called Rwanda's Oskar Schindler, for saving thousands of human lives during the genocide in 1994. It has now been over ten years since the assassination of this hero, but neither he nor his actions have been, nor will soon be forgotten.

Legacy

Today, in Kivumu, the Father Vjeko Center stands to commemorate the acts of heroism performed by Fra. Vjeko. It is run by the Franciscan friars stationed there today. The Center's director is Fra. Ivica Peric, who is Bosnian but was in Uganda during the Rwandan genocide. During Fra. Vjeko's life, the diocese granted him a plot of land on which to build a secondary school, which would be the first of its kind in Kivumu. Today, this project lives on, and the Father Vjeko Center is collecting donations to have the school erected.