Kampala - Thousands of bodies of the victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide which floated downriver and were eventually buried in mass graves in southern Uganda will be exhumed and re-buried Tuesday, reports said Saturday.

Up to 20,000 bodies floated down the Kagera River from northern Rwanda and were picked up along the western shores of Lake Victoria at the height of the Rwandan genocide. Now they will be exhumed and re-buried in a ceremony, the Kampala-based Central Broadcasting Service (CBS) radio quoted Rwandan diplomats as saying.

Villagers, Red Cross workers and volunteers hastily buried the decomposing remains in several mass graves around Lake Victoria's fishing village of Kasensero in Uganda 's southern district of Rakai.

The remains will be exhumed and re-buried Tuesday "as sign of increasing brotherly relations between Uganda and Rwanda," CBS radio quoted Rwanda's ambassador in Kampala, Ignatius Kamali, as saying.

Up to 800,000 people, mostly from the minority Tutsi ethnic group, and some moderate Hutus were massacred during the 100 days soon after a plane carrying Rwandan president Juvenal Habyalimana and his Burundian counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira crashed on April
6, 1994, killing both leaders. (dpa)