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In Rwanda, evil has a name, an address, and a bunk bed. At the Kigali Central Prison entrance, a 10-foot strand of twine and an elderly Rwandan armed with a rifle are the only bars to entry. Deo Gashagaza, Prison Fellowship Rwanda's executive director, drives up to the lush hillside entrance and the guard lowers the string, waving us through. The Ministry of Justice has granted CHRISTIANITY TODAY a rare day pass to visit this prison in Rwanda's capital.

Inside the five-acre prison complex is an astonishing sight for a Westerner's eyes: 5,056 men, 96 percent accused of genocidal butchery, dressed in pink. About 85,000 individuals, known as genocidaires, are imprisoned nationwide in a country a little smaller than the state of Maryland. Thousands of others are in so-called solidarity camps, where they prepare to re-enter civilian life, minus the infamous ID cards marking them as Hutu or Tutsi.

Four large warehouses ring the prison's large courtyard. The size of a football field, the courtyard is a mass of male humanity. Using buckets, they wash each other in the open air. A kitchen crew cooks bean porridge over a wood fire in hot tub-sized aluminum pots. Others weave baskets to be sold on the open market, or repair shoes. One teacher-inmate instructs prisoners in how to read and write in English.

The warehouses, where each inmate has a tiny bunk, are dank with human sweat. Laundry hangs in the rafters. The only illumination comes from several naked light bulbs. In the infirmary, skilled medical intervention and modern drugs are almost nonexistent. Sick inmates, including two in diabetic comas, lie on wood pallets and await whatever care may come their way, or a rapid and painful death.

I traveled for a week through Rwanda last year, seeking to understand what the genocidaires did, and how Christians, ten years after the slaughter, are pursuing reconciliation. I spent time with government officials, survivors, nurses, doctors, missionaries, former soldiers, and pastors. The price in lost lives and lost opportunities has been extraordinarily high for this nation, but a new space for healing is being created in a uniquely biblical and African way.

"We killed our people. The physical genocide was a reaction to spiritual genocide, spiritual emptiness," Emmanuel Kolini, the Anglican archbishop and Rwanda's most influential Protestant, told me as we talked at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Kigali. "Some people don't think sin is real. Rwanda is a witness. Sin is real. It is bitter. It's a fire. Rwanda has helped me understand the depth and weight of sin."

The roots of Rwanda's ethnic bloodletting run deep. During colonial rule, Westerners gave preferential treatment to Tutsis in education and skilled jobs. Hutus resented it deeply. A 1959 coup deposed the Tutsi monarchy, leading to Hutu majority rule. That set off decades of bloody reprisal and counter-reprisal. Tens of thousands of Tutsi and Hutu slaughtered each other with few consequences.

In 1990, Tutsi soldiers based in Uganda launched a civil war against the Hutu-controlled government. After four years of fighting, Tutsi and Hutu leaders prepared to share power. But on April 6, 1994, a jet carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana was hit by a missile that killed all on board. (No one has been charged with that assassination, but Hutus suspected Tutsis.) Within hours, a well-organized retaliation against Tutsis began. During the next 100 days, Hutu militias, government soldiers, and everyday Rwandans slaughtered Tutsis and moderate Hutus (all told, about 8,000 a day) with machetes, hand grenades, farming tools, arson, and bulldozers. The killing stopped only when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took control of the country on July 4, 1994.

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April 2004, Vol. 48, No. 4