On Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, word began spreading in northern Rwanda that two pupils at Rwinzovu Integrated School in Musanze District, a boy and a girl in Primary Four, had seen the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus while walking home. They said the image appeared first on an electricity pole, then in a nearby eucalyptus tree.

By Saturday morning people were streaming in, some from other parts of the country. They sang, prayed and slept at the site. Some said they saw images; others saw nothing. Estimates of the crowd ran from about 1,000 to several thousand. Musanze’s mayor, Claudien Nsengimana, said officials found more than a thousand people and nothing unusual, and called the story a rumor. The national utility removed the pole, citing safety and the crowds it kept drawing.

The parish priest of Busogo, Fr. Jean Bosco Nambaje, called the accounts contradictory and urged Catholics not to spread rumors and to pray only in authorized places. Church officials said there was no evidence so far of anything supernatural, and the claim went to the Diocese of Ruhengeri for study.

Rwanda already has one approved apparition. Between 1981 and 1989, three schoolgirls at Kibeho reported visions of Mary, which the Church approved in 2001 after two decades of investigation. Kibeho is the only approved Marian site in Africa and draws close to half a million pilgrims a year.