Rwanda's Genocide Begins: 100 Days of Slaughter
The assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, when his plane was shot down over Kigali, triggered a genocide that had been meticulously planned for months. Within hours, Hutu Power militias called Interahamwe began going door to door with machetes and clubs, using pre-distributed lists of Tutsi targets. Radio Mille Collines broadcast instructions and identified hiding places. Over 100 days, between 500,000 and one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered, most by their own neighbors. The killing rate exceeded the Holocaust. The UN peacekeeping force under Romeo Dallaire was forbidden from intervening despite advance intelligence. The genocide ended only when Paul Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front captured Kigali in July.
April 7, 1994
32 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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