Church leaders in Rwanda have admitted their "failure" to protect the country's citizens during the 1994 genocide at a recent church leaders' conference.

When Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down over Kigali airport on 6 April 1994, it triggered a large-scale killing campaign by machete-wielding Hutu militias. An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in just three months.

The recent church conference drew clerics together from across Rwanda to assess the role of the church in challenging the violent and hateful ideologies that resulted in the genocide, as well as the church's contribution to the healing process, reports Rwanda's The New Times newspaper.

Minister of Sports, Youth and Culture Joseph Habineza opened the conference by saying that the church had done nothing to contribute to the healing of Rwanda following the genocide and had not accepted its failure to protect the Rwandan people at the time.

"People are still walking with bitterness; they don't speak the truth in Gacaca courts (local level genocide courts), survivors die in the country and the church is watching and has done nothing to unify or reconcile the Rwandan society, which is their prime role," said Habineza, as he challenged the clerics to speak the truth and practise what they preach.

Rev André Mfitumukiza, Country Director of the African Leadership and Reconciliation Ministries, also accused the church of failing to unify and reconcile society and instead leaving the Rwandan government to do the church's work.

"The church has not been responsible enough in building and healing this nation. As church leaders we are ashamed and guilty when many critics come to us through various speeches, but we want to take up full responsibility for our failure and change our image as we work towards a better society," Rev Mfitumukiza said in his speech.

He also said he was a Hutu and went on to blame 1994's genocide of the Tutsi tribe on the Hutus, before asking every Hutu cleric to apologise for the mass killing.

As a gesture of reconciliation, 20 Hutu clerics came out and knelt before Tutsi clerics to apologies before Tutsi clerics came out to hug the Hutu clerics.