Remembering The Rwanda Genocide 25 Years After (Graphic Photos)

Remembering The Rwanda Genocide 25 Years After (Graphic Photos)

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^{Skulls of victims of the Ntarama massacre during the 1994 genocide are lined in the Genocide Memorial Site church of Ntarama, in Nyamata 27 February 2004. In the Bugesera province, where the small town of Nyamata is located, the 1994 Rwandan genocide was particularly brutal. Among the 59.000 Tutsis who lived in the province, 50.000 were killed during the genocide, and among them, 10.000 were slain in the church. AFP PHOTO/GIANLUIGI GUERCIA (Photo credit should read GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images)/PRI}


- Twenty-five (25) years gone and we remember the ethnic cleansing of the Tutsis, a minority tribe of cattle herders in Rwanda
- The whole event started with one murder and ended up with about 500,000-100,000 deaths, constituting 70% of the Tutsis population and 30% of the Twa population
- The ‘Rape Squad’, a biological warfare strategy involving HIV infected males were released from hospitals by the Hutus to rape Tutsis women
- The genocide was organized by members of the core Hutu political elite, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government.

The Rwandan genocide, which began 25 years ago this week, was one of the worst atrocities in living memory. It took just 100 days to massacre as much as 20 percent of the country’s population, decimate its infrastructure and sow the seeds of regional conflicts still to come.

What is the Rwandan genocide?

The Rwandan genocide was the mass slaughter of the Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government.

The Rwandan genocide was not a tribal conflict. They share the same language; the same religion; the same culture. They had lived together for centuries before the arrival of the European colonists. The minority Tutsis were mostly aristocratic cattle herders, and the majority Hutu were mostly farmers and peasants. The differences between the communities were emphasized by the Germans and Belgians as an instrument of colonial rule. The Belgians changed these terms from separating based on socio-economic classes to signify different socio-ethnic groups.

After Rwanda gained its independence in 1962, the distinctions driven by the Europeans remained. The Hutu majority continued to use these labels politically to win elections. Before 1994, 14% of the population was Tutsi, 85% were Hutu, and 1% was Twa. The only way to differentiate between these groups was to check national identity cards.

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