Genocide is the mass killing of a particular ethnic group. The worst in human history was the killing of all the Mamluks in Egypt in 1811 by Mohammed Ali. Though the number killed was 30,000 he succeeded in wiping out 99% of Mamluk population. Have we forgotten the holocaust of the mid-1940s when Hitler gased over 6million Jews to death in Nazi Gas Chambers?.
What happened in Rwanda in April 1994 has never happened before. Then I was a little child writing my first examination in Nursery School while thousands were butchered somewhere.
Rwanda is a country in East Africa. It has two major ethnic groups : Hutu (84% of entire population), Tutsi (15%) while Twa is 1%. Hutus hatred for Tutsi started before their independence in 1962 when they accused the colonialists of given the Tutsi preferential treatment. The hatred and power tussle grew worse after independence. Many things passed through between 1962 -1993 that made people believe genocide was imminent. As at Jan. 1994, millions of cutlasses had been imported from China and shared to all the Hutus.
On the 6th of April 1994, the aircraft carry Rwandan president Habyarimana Juvenal and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntanyamira (both Hutus) was shot down.
That night, the vice president gave an order for the genocide. He ordered the soldiers, police and a heartless militia known as Interahanwe to start by killing Tutsi personnel in armed forces. The following morning in Kigali, the capital city, there was a new order that all Tutsi, old and young, men, women and kids should be murdered. Civil servants stopped work and were asked to go and hunt for Tutsi wherever they were hiding. They were even asked to butcher every Tutsi woman married to a Hutu. Husband and children would watch mother of the house being slaughtered. About 11,000 were killed the 1st day.
NTARAMA CATHOLIC CHURCH – About 5000 Tutsis took refuge there but the Bishop incharge of the Diocese who was a hutu went and reported to the soldiers. They came and shot all of them. None escaped.
FEDERAL GIRLS COLLEGE KIGALI
This girl’s college had up to 1,200 school girls inside. They just locked their gate and never knew the magnitude of the attack. The Interahanwe blew the school gate with granade. When they entered, they separated the Hutus from the Tutsis and shot the latter.
NYANGE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Over 2000 Tutsis came here for a refuge. The local priest, Rev. Fr. Athanase Seromba went and called the soldiers. They came in a bulldozer. They broke the church fence and the bulldozer crushed the Tutsis as they shot them as well.
MURAMBI TECHNICAL SCHOOL
About 3000 villagers and students were here for a refuge when they were slaughtered.
The genocide lasted for 100days 7th April – July 16, 1994. An average of 8,000 were killed per day (over 800,000 casualties). Now their skulls are kept in a museum in Kigali for remembrance.
During the genocide, some kind-hearted Hutus saved few Tutsi .e.g Jacqueline Mukansonare hid 12 women in a 6X6 dilapidated bathroom for 2months without the consent of her husband. Some were saved in a hotel in Kigali by Paul Rusesabagina.
The arrival of Paul Kagame, a Tutsi with some allied forces ended the genocide. The hunter became the hunted.
