Genocide Watch

American Scientists have taken a significant step in providing an explanation as to why mental health has reached the alarming levels it had in the country. The study by University of South Florida Genomics program and the Center for Global Health and Infectious Disease Research provides scientific tools to help…

A person in charge of keeping a major genocide memorial site in Rubavu district has caused shock in the area after it emerged that some items are missing. The Nyundo genocide memorial site is where 851 victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, are laid to rest. However, since…

Days after February 15 will remain engrained in the mind of Rukundo Emmanuel for ever. His sister, and the last remaining member of his immediate family had just been buried. Then the cross on her grave disappeared. Years of horrifying torment by some of his neighbours have left Rukundo, 32,…

France bears overwhelming responsibilities over the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and was “blind” to preparations for the massacres, a report by historians said Friday, while adding there was no evidence Paris was complicit in the killings. A historical commission set up by President Emmanuel Macron concluded there had been a…

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR) has ruled that Dr Leon Mugesera has been jailed under inhumane and cruel conditions as he serves life sentence for genocide. The latest ruling by the Arusha, Tanzania-based court, which is not the first on Rwanda, is unlikely to be implemented…

There have been a series of arrests in Europe in recent months of Rwandans accused of participating in the 1994 genocide. After Félicien Kabuga in France, three people were arrested in Belgium in October and another one in the Netherlands (see Box). Who are they? Belgium, which is the European…

A community in Nyaruguru district, southern Rwanda, was left in both shock and happiness when a man confessed to a a neighbor that he had been part of interahamwe gang that killed her family. The incident happened during a community outreach session conducted by a social action group AMI (Association…

A top French appeals court has agreed to extradite the alleged financier of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, Félicien Kabuga, to face trial in Tanzania. Mr Kabuga, 85, was arrested in May at his home outside Paris after 26 years on the run. Mr Kabuga is alleged…

The Rwanda Investigations Bureau (RIB) has said the number of people prosecuted for denying the 1994 against the Tutsi is steadily dropping over the years as the population becomes more enlightened. RIB Secretary General Colonel Jeannot Ruhunga said for past five years, some 2,300 files have been submitted to the…

In Rwanda, there are a thousand “protected witnesses” from the former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Among them, the feeling of abandonment often dominates. This is the case of Mother KRA, who lives isolated in a miserable hovel where she no longer sees anyone and is surprised that she has…

Want for genocide, Augustin Bizimana, the defense minister of the interim government in 1994, died two decades ago, the UN confirmed Friday. The UN’s International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism), which replaced the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says confirmation is based on the conclusive identification of Bizimana’s…

France on Saturday arrested Felicien Kabuga, one of the last key fugitives wanted over 1994 Rwandan genocide, leaving him facing a likely trial at an international tribunal after a quarter of a century on the run. Kabuga, once one of Rwanda’s richest men, was living under a false identity in…

APRIL 7, 1994: THE BEGINNING OF THE GENOCIDE THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY IS THE PROOF THAT THE RWANDAN STATE HAD PLANNED THE EXTERMINATION OF TUTSI The genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi was planned, and this is reflected in the massacres and the hateful speeches which preceded it, but the planning of…

Five people acquitted years ago by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda are still waiting to find a host country. One of them for 16 years. This situation looks unlikely to change any time soon, for them and for four convicts who have served their sentences and share their containment,…

On March 18, 1991, the head of the intelligence service in Ruhengeri Prefecture, Munyangoga Eugene, sent a report to his director general in Kigali a report in which he suggested distributing weapons to the people of Ruhengeri. This day will remain a dark cloud in Rwanda’s abysmal past. It is…

Genocide convict Dr Leon Mugesera has petitioned the Supreme Court seeking to have one Justice on the bench trying him, to be removed from his appeals trial. The latest petition was made known in court on Monday as the court opened proceedings for continuation of Dr Mugesera’s appeal against a…

In February 1994 a representative of CHILLINGTON, a manufacturing company which makes machetes among other things, reported that the company sold more machetes in one moth than it had sold throughout the year 1993. Applications for import licenses examined by Human Rights Watch between January 1993 and March 1994 show…

An audio speech used in the genocide case against academic Dr Leon Mugesera was fabricated with new content added, the Court of Appeal has heard. Appearing for the start of his appeal against a life sentence for his involvement in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, Mugesera told court that…

On the 23 January 2020, the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) hosted Bishop John Rucyahana for a public lecture commemorating the 71st anniversary of the UN Convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide. Facilitated as part of a series by the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide…

A high-level government delegation has confirmed that the mass grave exhume at airport in Rubavu district contained remains of Tutsis targeted as part of anti-Tutsi massacres before 1994. Justice Minister and Attorney General Johnston Busingye this Sunday led a fact-finding team to the site together with Dr Jean Damascene Bizimana,…

On Saturday January 4, workers undertaking expansion works at a small government airport in Rubavu district were shocked when they began digging up human remains. Work was halted immediately and officials called in. IBUKA, the genocide survivors umbrella organization, issued a statement on Sunday in which it was sending out…

Fabien Neretse, 71, told a Brussels court this week he played no part in the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda. He said he did not denounce his Tutsi neighbours in Kigali or train Interahamwe militia as he is accused, and that the prosecution has got everything wrong. Court president Sophie…

Genocide convicts in Mageragere prison, the biggest in Kigali, have pinpointed 126 locations they say have mass graves in which victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi were buried. Justice Minister and Attorney General Johnston Busingye was told of the mass graves on Thursday during a visit to the…

Germany and the rest of the world are commemorating 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the country’s reunification in 1989/90. In Rwanda, the ceremony was held on October 4 at the offices of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) in Kigali. Opening the function, the Director-General of the Institute…

Barely a week after Rwanda issued a list of individuals and entities outside Rwanda that are promoting a genocide revisionist agenda, those cited have decided to come out guns blazing. In a new campaign, 21 individuals – who include exiled Rwandan politicians, are using a previously existing forum called ‘Global…

Government should set up a specific office to deal with the growing genocide negationist lobby, says Parliament in a new report. The upper house of parliament, the Senate, recommends the government appoints “Ambassador at Large” – a position which if established will be the first such appointment. The recommendation is…

An investigation has been opened in Nyamagabe district, southern province, on Cyanika parish amid allegations the clergy may have hidden information about a mass grave in the church’s land. As of this Monday September 30, remains of 104 victims believed to have been killed in the 1994 genocide against the…

Local officials have since the weekend been exhuming at a site in Rwezamenyo sector, Nyarugenge district, believed to be mass grave for victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. The site is a compound with houses that belonged to a family some of who survived and currently live in…

The Auditor General has discovered that a government-aided fund set up to support genocide survivors has millions of Francs in banks despite the constant reports of poor conditions in which many of the survivors live. As of April 2019, AG Obadiah Biraro says that there is a total of Rwf…

France provided arms to government of Juvenal Habyarimana to fight off the rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A), admits Admiral Jacques Lanxade, French army chief from April 1991-1995. Admiral Lanxade dismisses as “completely false” the details contained in a book by former French army officer Guillaume Ancel in Rwanda…