Essays on Rwandan Genocide

7 April – 15 July 1994

Rwanda

By the early 1990s, Rwanda had one of the highest population densities in Africa. About 85% of Rwandans are Hutus but the Tutsi minority has long dominated the country. In 1990, forces of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), consisting mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded Rwanda from Uganda.

The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War, when the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down. The purpose of the Hutu ethnic majority was to wipe out every member of the minority Tutsi group.

About 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group were slaughtered by armed militias. Most of the victims were killed in their own villages or towns by the militia with machetes and rifles. The Rwandan Genocide is one of the most notorious modern genocides.