The Rwandan genocide was the mass killing of Tutsi in Rwanda between April and July 1994. Over about a hundred days, soldiers, militias and ordinary civilians, organised and encouraged by Hutu extremists in the government and army, killed hundreds of thousands of Tutsi, together with moderate Hutu and Twa. It ended when the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front took control of the country.
Background
Under German and then Belgian colonial rule, the distinction between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority hardened. The Belgian administration favoured Tutsi elites and, from the 1930s, recorded ethnic identity on identity cards. Around independence in 1962, a Hutu-led revolution brought violence against Tutsi, and many fled to neighbouring countries. In 1990 the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel army formed largely of Tutsi exiles, invaded from Uganda, starting a civil war. A peace deal, the Arusha Accords, was signed in August 1993 and a small UN mission, UNAMIR, was sent to oversee it, but Hutu extremists opposed power-sharing and spread anti-Tutsi propaganda, notably through the radio station RTLM, while militias such as the Interahamwe were trained and armed.
The killings begin
On the evening of 6 April 1994, a plane carrying Rwanda's president, Juvénal Habyarimana, and the president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down near Kigali, killing everyone aboard. Who was responsible has never been established and remains disputed. Within hours, extremist officers and militias set up roadblocks and began killing opposition politicians, including the prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, and Tutsi civilians. Ten Belgian peacekeepers guarding her were killed.
The genocide
The killing spread across most of the country. Lists of targets had been prepared in advance, and local officials, soldiers and radio broadcasts urged Hutu civilians to take part. Identity cards were checked at roadblocks to pick out Tutsi. Many victims were killed with machetes and clubs, often by neighbours, and thousands who sought refuge in churches, schools and stadiums were massacred there. Rape was widespread; estimates of the number of women raped run from 250,000 to 500,000. Some Hutu risked their lives to hide Tutsi.
International failure
UNAMIR, under the Canadian general Roméo Dallaire, had warned of the danger and lacked a mandate to use force. After the Belgian deaths the UN reduced the force, and foreign governments evacuated their own citizens but did not intervene. Major powers avoided using the word genocide for weeks. In June France launched Operation Turquoise, a humanitarian mission in the south-west whose role has been heavily criticised.
The RPF victory
The RPF, led by Paul Kagame, resumed its offensive, took Kigali on 4 July and won control of most of the country by mid-July. Around two million people, mostly Hutu, fled, many into Zaire, where the presence of armed perpetrators among the refugees fed later wars in the Congo. RPF forces also committed killings during and after their advance.
The toll and justice
Estimates of the dead vary. Many scholars put the number of Tutsi killed at roughly 500,000 to 660,000, while the Rwandan government gives a figure of over a million; thousands of Hutu and Twa were also killed. The UN set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, which in 1998 delivered the first conviction for genocide by an international court, and Rwanda tried many more suspects in community gacaca courts.
On our maps
In pictures
1 images · scroll →From the atlas
Rwandan genocide in time and on the map
Rwandan genocide took place in 1994. Borders of Time has one world map from those years: 1994.
Living through it, among others on this site: Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006), Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997), Desmond Tutu (1931–2021), Elizabeth II (1926–2022), Fidel Castro (1926–2016), Hafez al-Assad (1930–2000), Idi Amin (1925–2003), John Rawls (1921–2002), Julius Nyerere (1922–1999) and Karl Popper (1902–1994).
Other events of the same years: Satsuma Rebellion (1877–2005), Nahda (1900–2000), The Troubles (1960–1998), Guatemalan Civil War (1965–1996), Angolan Civil War (1975–2002), Human Genome Project (1990–2003), End of apartheid (1990–1994), Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001), Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002) and Bosnian War (1992–1995).
Next to it in time on this site: before, Oslo Accords (1993) and First Chechen War (1994–1996); after, Srebrenica massacre (1995) and First Congo War (1996–1997).
Quick answers
- When did Rwandan genocide happen?
- In 1994.
- Where did Rwandan genocide take place?
- Rwanda.