Rwanda commemorates 30 years since genocide
- The assassination of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana, when his plane was shot down, triggered a rampage by Hutu extremists and the ‘Interahamwe’ militia
- Their victims were shot, beaten or hacked to death in killings fuelled by vicious anti-Tutsi propaganda broadcasts. At least 250,000 women were raped, the UN says
Rwanda on Sunday paid solemn tribute to genocide victims, 30 years after a vicious campaign orchestrated by Hutu extremists tore apart the country, as neighbours turned on each other in one of the bloodiest massacres of the 20th century.
The killing spree, which lasted 100 days before the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel militia took Kigali in July 1994, claimed the lives of 800,000 people, largely Tutsis but also moderate Hutus.
The tiny nation has since found its footing under the iron-fisted rule of President Paul Kagame, who led the RPF, but the scars of the violence remain, leaving a trail of destruction across Africa’s Great Lakes region.
In keeping with tradition, the ceremonies on April 7 – the day Hutu militias unleashed the carnage in 1994 – began with Kagame lighting a remembrance flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims are believed to be buried.
As an army band played mournful melodies, Kagame placed wreaths on the mass graves, flanked by foreign dignitaries including several African heads of state and former US president Bill Clinton, who had called the genocide the biggest failure of his administration.
