Rwanda 1994: Unveiling the Untold Horror of the Tutsi Genocide

On the evening of May 20, 1994, Thomas Habimana’s parents and dozens of fellow Rwandans huddled  in a village church, praying they might survive another day. Machete-wielding militiamen had encircled them. As the attackers closed in, Habimana’s father uttered a final plea: “Lord forgive them because they know not what they are doing.” Moments later, a fatal blow struck him down. Habimana’s mother, still holding her husband’s hand, was killed next. The mob then turned on everyone in sight – men, women, children – in a frenzy of violence. That spring, scenes like this repeated across Rwanda. In just 100 days, an estimated 800,000 to one million people were slaughtered – primarily members of the Tutsi minority, along with moderate Hutu who opposed the killing. This orchestrated campaign of mass murder would come to be known as the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi.

Historical Fault Lines: Decades of Division

The people of Rwanda consist mainly of two groups, Hutu and Tutsi, who share the same language and culture but had distinct social roles. Under Belgian colonial rule from 1916 to 1962, these identities were hardened and exploited. The Belgian authorities viewed the minority Tutsi as superior and placed them in most leadership positions, breeding resentment among the Hutu majority. By the late 1950s, as Rwanda moved toward independence, long-simmering tensions erupted. A 1959 revolution by Hutu activists overthrew the Tutsi monarchy. In the violence, many Tutsi were killed and hundreds of thousands fled into exile in neighboring countries. The newly independent Rwanda (1962) came under Hutu-led governments that entrenched the notion of Tutsi as internal enemies.

Decades later, exiled Tutsi and their descendants formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel movement determined to return home. In October 1990, the RPF launched a guerrilla invasion from Uganda, igniting a civil war. Rwanda’s longtime president, Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu nationalist in power since 1973, initially saw the rebels as a manageable threat. But his regime quickly pivoted to a strategy of fear: it painted all Tutsi – even civilians inside Rwanda – as accomplices of the rebel force. State-run radio and newspapers began spreading an anti-Tutsi propaganda narrative, resurrecting historical grievances and falsely accusing Tutsi of plotting to re-enslave the Hutu. The Habyarimana government also required every citizen’s ethnic group to be listed on national ID cards, making Tutsi easy to identify.

Throughout the early 1990s, periodic massacres of Tutsi occurred, instigated by hardliners in power. These attacks – in 1990, 1992, and 1993 – went unpunished. emboldening the perpetrators. Extremist Hutu leaders also formed militias. The most notorious was the Interahamwe, the youth wing of the ruling party, which received military training and was indoctrinated to hate Tutsi. Despite these tensions, international peace efforts proceeded. In 1993, under pressure, President Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accords, agreeing to share power with the RPF and other opposition. But hardliners in his inner circle – often called “Hutu Power” extremists – saw the accords as a threat. They spent the ensuing months actively preparing for a “final solution” to the so-called Tutsi “problem.” Propaganda intensified, and death lists were drawn up. Rwanda was a tinderbox; the spark came in April 1994.

1994 – 100 Days of Genocide

On the night of April 6, 1994, a plane carrying President Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali, the capital. It was the event the extremists were waiting for. Within hours of the crash, hardline military officers and politicians seized effective control of the government, blamed the Tutsi-led RPF for the president’s death, and launched a coordinated campaign of killing that engulfed the country. Roadblocks sprang up across Kigali and other cities; Tutsi civilians (and moderate Hutu officials) were pulled from cars and homes and murdered on the spot. The prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana – a moderate Hutu – was assassinated the next day along with her Belgian UN peacekeeper guards. This was not spontaneous chaos, but a well-planned extermination campaign by Hutu Power leaders. They had prepared militias with stockpiles of machetes, guns, and even hit-lists of targets.

Over the next several weeks, slaughter spread to every province. Local officials and radio announcers urged Hutu civilians to hunt down their Tutsi neighbors, often using chilling euphemisms – calling Tutsis “snakes” or “cockroaches” that must be stamped out. Mobs went house to house with machetes, clubs, and rifles. No Tutsi was to be spared: men, women, children, even infants were killed. Many were attacked in churches and schools where they sought refuge. In one horrific massacre in mid-April, thousands of Tutsi were butchered at the Nyarubuye church. At least 250,000 women suffered brutal sexual violence, systematically perpetrated by militias and soldiers as a tool of genocide. The rivers of Rwanda literally ran red with blood, carrying bodies toward Lake Victoria.

Despite the terror, there were also acts of remarkable courage: some Hutu risked their lives to hide or protect Tutsi friends. But those who resisted the genocidaires were often killed as well. “Many Hutu who attempted to hide or defend Tutsi… were also targeted and killed,” notes a Human Rights Watch account. In communities, former neighbors turned on each other. The killing was intensely personal – often face-to-face, done with primitive weapons – which left deep psychological scars on survivors.

For roughly 100 days, from April through mid-July 1994, Rwanda was gripped by this government-orchestrated genocide. An estimated 800,000 to one million civilians were killed, representing about three-quarters of the Tutsi population of Rwanda.  Countless families were completely wiped out. Habimana, the young survivor whose parents were murdered in May, lost not only his mother and father but many relatives and friends in those weeks. “Both died instantly, and the mob started killing left and right,” he later recounted of his parents’ fate. “Eighty Tutsi families had been brought to the area to be executed… it claimed the lives of my parents with their friends that Friday evening.” Across the country, the pattern was similar – but by early summer, the killing frenzy was slowing only because there were fewer Tutsi left alive to kill.

Finally, in July 1994, the RPF rebel force – which had resumed its war against the genocidal regime – won a decisive military victory, capturing Kigali and other major cities. The genocidal government collapsed. Many of the Hutu extremist leaders fled into neighboring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) along with about 2 million Hutu refugees, some of whom were innocent civilians fleeing chaos, others perpetrators escaping justice.The RPF’s battlefield triumph on July 4, 1994 effectively ended the genocide. In the process, RPF troops themselves killed some civilians (primarily Hutu) in reprisal or as they routed the génocidaires, though on a far smaller scale. By mid-July, the 100 days of genocide were over – leaving a nation destroyed and traumatized.

Hate Media: Propaganda as a Weapon

The genocide was not an accident of frenzy – it was stoked deliberately by hate propaganda, a crucial tool used by the architects of the slaughter. In the months leading up to April 1994, Rwandan media outlets friendly to Hutu Power extremists bombarded the public with virulent anti-Tutsi messaging. The notorious Kangura newspaper, for example, had published the “Hutu Ten Commandments” in 1990 – a screed that urged Hutu to shun and suspect all Tutsi, portraying Tutsi women as seductresses and all Tutsi as traitors. This kind of dehumanizing propaganda, which labeled Tutsi as inherently treacherous, primed ordinary citizens to participate in violence. Kangura’s editor, Hassan Ngeze, would later be convicted of incitement to genocide by an international tribunal.

But radio proved even more influential. Rwanda’s most popular station in 1994, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), became a cheerleader for genocide. Co-founded and funded by extremist Hutu businessmen (notably Félicien Kabuga), RTLM began broadcasting in 1993 and quickly drew a wide audience with its populist style – pop music mixed with politics. As genocide preparations intensified, RTLM’s tone turned overtly murderous. Announcers on RTLM repeatedly referred to Tutsis as “inyenzi” (cockroaches) and told listeners to “cut down the tall trees,” code urging the killing of Tutsis Once the violence began, the station went further – it even named specific individuals to hunt down, reading out names and locations of Tutsis in hiding.

One genocide survivor later described RTLM’s eerie influence: “They would play a popular song to draw people in – then a voice would calmly explain which neighborhoods still had Tutsis alive, calling on ‘patriots’ to go finish them.’” Such propaganda erased any ambiguity: it convinced tens of thousands of Hutu civilians that murdering their neighbors was not only acceptable but necessary. It’s estimated that around 200,000 Hutu participated in the killings, spurred on by this relentless incitement. Hate-filled media essentially provided both the ideological justification and the real-time instructions for genocide.

The World’s Response: Deadly Silence

As the massacres raged, desperate pleas for help went out. Yet the international community’s response was shockingly feeble – a failure now regarded as one of the great humanitarian abdications of modern times. A small UN peacekeeping force, the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), had been deployed in Rwanda since 1993 to oversee the Arusha peace accords. But UNAMIR had only a limited mandate and minimal troops (about 2,500 at peak). When the violence erupted in April 1994, its Canadian commander, Gen. Roméo Dallaire, urgently asked UN headquarters for authorization to intervene and stop the killing. Instead, the UN Security Council voted to scale back the mission. After 10 Belgian peacekeepers were brutally murdered on April 7, Belgium withdrew its contingent entirely. Within weeks, UNAMIR’s strength dropped to just a few hundred soldiers – helpless witnesses to genocide.

Foreign governments, too, largely stood by. The United States, still scarred by a failed mission in Somalia months earlier, avoided intervening and even hesitated to call the killings “genocide” for far too long. France, an ally of the Hutu-led government, sent a military force (Opération Turquoise) in late June – but this mission was limited to establishing a safe zone in southwestern Rwanda after most of the killing was done. (Critics say the French deployment enabled many genocide perpetrators to escape across the border.) No outside power mustered the political will to confront the genocidaires head-on while the slaughter was ongoing. As a UN report later acknowledged, this was a catastrophic failure to protect civilians.

Seeking Justice: Trials and Tribunals

When the genocide was finally halted, Rwanda lay in ruins – but the pursuit of justice began almost immediately. The new RPF-led government faced the enormous task of holding perpetrators accountable. Prisons overflowed with tens of thousands of suspects in the genocide’s immediate aftermath. In response, community-based courts known as Gacaca (pronounced ga-CHA-cha) were established. Drawing from a traditional conflict-resolution concept, Gacaca courts were a bold experiment in grassroots justice. Beginning around 2002 and expanding nationwide by 2005, some 12,000 local tribunals convened in villages across Rwanda. Ordinary citizens elected as lay judges heard testimony about killings, looting, and rape that occurred in their communities. Over the next decade, almost 2 million cases were tried through Gacaca, until the process concluded in 2012. The Gacaca courts succeeded in uncovering truth and delivering a form of accountability at a scale conventional courts could never have managed. They also aimed to promote reconciliation – by encouraging perpetrators to confess and apologize in front of neighbors. Many did, and received reduced sentences or community service in return.

The results were mixed. Gacaca did move swiftly – processing an astonishing number of cases – and it allowed many survivors to learn how their loved ones had been killed. Some communities experienced genuine moments of catharsis and forgiveness. However, there were also flaws: reports of false accusations, intimidation of witnesses, and inconsistencies in verdicts by untrained judges. There was little provision for defense counsel, raising fair-trial concerns. And crucially, the Gacaca courts dealt solely with crimes of the genocide; they pointedly did not address any retaliatory killings committed by the RPF, which meant one side of the conflict was beyond their scope. Gacaca was an imperfect but innovative form of justice – one that many Rwandans, despite its shortcomings, credit with helping communities begin to heal.

In parallel, the international community set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to try top-level architects of the genocide. Established by the UN Security Council in late 1994 and based in Arusha, Tanzania, the ICTR focused on high-ranking government, military, and media figures. Over its two-decade existence, the tribunal indicted 93 individuals, securing convictions against 62 of them. Those prosecuted included former Prime Minister Jean Kambanda (who notably pleaded guilty, the first head of government ever convicted of genocide), defense minister Théoneste Bagosora (often identified as a chief orchestrator), and infamous propagandists like RTLM’s Ferdinand Nahimana and Kangura’s Hassan Ngeze. The ICTR broke new legal ground – its judgements established precedent that media figures can be held accountable for incitement to genocide. It also explicitly recognized rape as an act of genocide in the landmark Akayesu case. By the time the ICTR closed in 2015, it had become a cornerstone of international justice, demonstrating that some measure of accountability for genocide could be achieved beyond national courts.

In addition to the ICTR, national courts in various countries have prosecuted Rwandan genocide suspects found in their jurisdictions – in Belgium, France, Canada, the United States and elsewhere – under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Just this year, a court in France sentenced a Rwandan former policeman to 20 years for genocide crimes committed in 1994. And in 2020, Félicien Kabuga, the alleged financier of RTLM’s hate broadcasts, was arrested after decades on the run – though a UN judge later deemed him unfit for trial.

From Hate to Healing: Reconciliation and Memory

Punishing the guilty was only one part of Rwanda’s post-genocide journey. The new government under RPF leader (now President) Paul Kagame also emphasized national reconciliation – trying to mend the torn social fabric and ensure such divisions never erupt again. Early on, Rwanda’s authorities took dramatic steps to erase ethnic labels from public life. References to Hutu or Tutsi were removed from identity cards; people would henceforth simply be “Rwandan.” Kagame’s administration outright banned public identification by ethnicity, seeking to deny divisive ideology any oxygen. A 2003 constitution outlawed “genocide ideology,” making it a crime to engage in the kind of ethnic hate speech that had fueled the violence. These policies have been credited with restoring a sense of shared nationhood, although critics note that silencing ethnic discussion can also suppress open dialogue about history. Still, in the eyes of many survivors, unity has been preferable to division. As one oft-repeated slogan in Rwanda says: “We are not Hutu or Tutsi now; we are all simply Rwandans.”

Alongside justice, Rwanda also undertook the hard work of remembrance and education. The country observes April 7 – the day after the genocide began – as the start of an annual official week of mourning. Each year on this date, Rwandans come together in memorial ceremonies known as Kwibuka (“remember” in Kinyarwanda). The nation essentially comes to a standstill: businesses close, flags fly at half-mast, and citizens participate in vigils and discussions about the genocide’s history. A flame of remembrance is lit at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, burning for 100 days to symbolize the duration of the atrocity. Similar commemorations take place at local memorials across the country. Music and dancing are suspended during mourning periods, and media focuses on survivor testimonies and educational programs. The refrain “Never Again” – never another genocide – is a constant theme, underscoring a collective commitment to learn from the past.

One such survivor, Thomas Habimana, has dedicated himself to remembrance. He eventually escaped Rwanda and later settled in the United States, but he returns often to honor his lost family. In a written reflection shared with Truthlytics, Habimana addresses the victims directly: “To those taken too soon… We will never forget your sacrifices. We have to keep your memories alive if we are to honor you.” He notes that words alone cannot convey the magnitude of what happened: “Words cannot express what we feel. Books cannot do justice to what happened.” (Habimana testimony). By telling and retelling their stories, survivors like him turn memory into a powerful tool for healing – and a warning to the world.

A Plead to the World

As we reflect on the Genocide Against the Tutsi, we’re reminded that such atrocities don’t erupt out of nowhere—they are cultivated in silence, in propaganda, in dehumanization, and in the quiet shrug of the world looking the other way. Rwanda’s history is a warning, yes—but also a testament. A people who endured the unimaginable now stand with resilience, unity, and a refusal to forget.

In a time when division, disinformation, and violence once again spread across our screens and borders, the memory of 1994 should not sit in the past. It should live as a call to action. A call to speak out when hate festers, to stand with the vulnerable, and to remember that silence can be deadly.

Compassion is not passive. Remembrance is not optional. If we truly mean Never Again, then Rwanda’s story must continue to be told—not only in sorrow, but in solidarity. For those we lost. For those who survived. For all of us still learning how to be better.

Special thanks to Thomas Habimana for sharing his powerful testimony with Truthlytics. His courage in remembering and retelling his story ensures that the voices of the victims—and the strength of the survivors—continue to be heard.