Rwandan genocide — facts, timeline, death toll and movies based around the genocide against the Tutsi
THE Rwandan genocide was one of the most shocking events to have happened to humanity in the post-Cold war world.
Thousands were hacked to pieces, many by their own neighbours, while rape squads were formed to deliberately spread HIV among women in a horrific civil war.
What happened in the Rwandan genocide?
The 100 days of slaughter began on April 6, 1994.
Shrill broadcasts in the government media incited the killings, portraying Tutsis as dangerous, bent on dominating Hutus.
In villages across the densely populated country, neighbour turned on neighbour as men, women and children were hacked to death, burned alive, clubbed and shot.
Hutus extremists also released AIDS patients from hospitals in order to form "rape squads" to infect Tutsi women.
Thousands of survivors and their children born from rape are now infected with the virus.
It ended in July 1994 when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-led rebel movement led by Kagame, swept in from Uganda and seized control of the country.
Why did it happen?
Mass murder was unleashed after President Juvenal Habyarimana and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi — both Hutus — were killed when their plane was shot down over the Rwandan capital.
The attackers have never been identified.
The attack mobilised Hutu government soldiers and allied extremist militia, who orchestrated the genocide to exterminate the Tutsi minority.
What was the death toll?
As many as 10,000 people were killed daily.
In all 800,000 Tutsi and moderate were slaughtered.
Seventy percent of the minority Tutsi population was wiped out and over 10 percent of the total Rwandan population.
UNICEF estimated more than 300,000 children were killed.
Most were hacked or beaten to death.
What movies are based around the Rwandan genocide?
There are numerous films about the nightmarish bloodshed.
The most famous is the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda.
The main character is Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle).
He is a hotel manager and a man of conscience who risked everything to protect more than a 1,000 from slaughter by the Hutus.
He turned the elegant Hôtel des Mille Collines into a place of refuge
Another movie is My Neighbour My Killer (2009) which explores the aftermath of the genocide.
This includes the court cases as well as revealing the emotional damage being experienced by the country.
Beyond the Gates (2005) was filmed on location and many survivors of the genocide were part of the cast and crew.
It tackles two unrelated questions: why the West stood by and the question of faith after the horror of genocide.
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