Antonia Locatelli

Antonia Locatelli (16 November 1937–10 March 1992) was an Italian Roman Catholic missionary educator who had lived in Rwanda since the early 1970s.

In March 1992, she witnessed massacres of the Tutsis taking place in the Bugesera region, south of Kigali. In an attempt to save 300 to 400 Tutsis, she phoned up the Belgian embassy, French RFI Radio and the BBC.

"I know that the people who came to commit these murders came from outside. They were brought by government vehicles. Contrary to what is said, it is not a popular anger against the Tutsi, it is a deliberate movement of the government to commit political killings."

On the night between 9 and 10 March 1992, she was gunned down by a group of presidential guards who had arrived from Kigali specifically for the purpose.

Antonia Locatelli is buried in Nyamata, near a church in which, during the Rwandan genocide two years later, ten thousand Tutsis were massacred.