Genocide Watch

Can people really kill their neighbours – massively and out of hatred? Is it anthropologically possible? Massacres and genocide of neighbours have become a subcategory of mass violence studies over the past two decades. Dr, Jean-Philippe Belleau, from the University of Massachusetts Boston, explains what could have pushed neighbours to hunt…

Claver Irakoze, a survivor of the1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, faces the complex challenge of explaining this dark period to his children. Striving to avoid passing on trauma or at least minimizing this real threat, he has authored books aimed at young readers, using storytelling to impart lessons…

Meta is parent company of Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp A lawsuit filed in a Kenyan court on Wednesday accused Meta of fueling political unrest in Africa demanding that the company pay over $2 billion in victims funds and make significant improvements to its service. In the lawsuit, Facebook, owned by…

Félicien Kabuga’s arrest was announced as a great success and his trial as an important event. But little has been heard about this trial that started on September 29 – for good reason, because the trial of Kabuga, alleged financier of the 1994 Tutsi genocide, is being held mostly behind…

President Paul Kagame meets Emmanuel Macron in Paris in September 2017 Investigating magistrates have found no evidence that French troops were complicit in crimes against humanity during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. French magistrates dropped a case against French peacekeepers accused of being complicit in a massacre…

A group of women survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi 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…

April 9, 2017: Remains of victims of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi at Nyundo Cathedral, are laid to rest in this new memorial site 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…

Emmanuel Rukundo at home 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…

French soldiers in Rwanda during the genocide 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…

Dr Leon Mugesera board a prison van back to jail from one of the countless court appearances in Rwanda 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…

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…

Photo taken during the AMI session in Nyaruguru district shows the Viateur Mbabariye (center) standing next to Philomene Mukamabano, the widow whose family he killed 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…

Picture of Felicien Kabuga after he was arrested in a Paris Suburb 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…

This suspect Rukundo Assouman was rearrested again in April 2019 after he confronted a genocide survivor saying: “I’ll kill you so that you follow your relatives”. He was found guilty in 2016 over similar actions, was released under presidential pardon in September 2018 together with 2,139 others The Rwanda Investigations…

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…

This was one of the promotional posters online for the US bounty on Augustin Bizimana 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…

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. The first public photo of Felicien Kabuga in over 26 years. Here was when…

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,…

The training of the interahamwe youths continued being done in a joint operation by Rwandan and French military officers. Here in 1994, Rwanda — A group of Rwandan recruits carrying model rifles march down a road. — (Photo by Peter Turnley/CORBIS) On March 18, 1991, the head of the intelligence…

Dr Leon Mugesera leaves the Court of Appeal in previous session. He looks very weak which is clearly visible as he walks 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…

The machetes became the must have tool during the genocide 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…

Dr Leon Mugesera 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…

Bishop John Rucyahana speaking at the lecture 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…

Justice Minister and Attorney General Johnston Busingye (in blue shirt) led delegation to site on Sunday 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…

Local officials helping with the exhumation currently ongoing at the Rubavu district airport. The bornes are sorted and separated from items like clothing. After it is confirmed they are genocide victims, they will be laid to rest at a local genocide memorial site On Saturday January 4, workers undertaking expansion…

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…

Mass graves of Tutsis killed in 1994 are still being discovered, 25 years after. Here in Kabuga, outside Kigali, several mass graves were exhumed late last year. Genocide convicts in Mageragere prison, the biggest in Kigali, have pinpointed 126 locations they say have mass graves in which victims of the…

Dr Markus Pieper, the in-charge of memorial sites and museums at the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany, explains to visitors at the exhibition organized as part of the events marking Germany reunification Germany and the rest of the world are commemorating 30 years…

Faustin Twagiramungu, ex-Prime Minister from July 1994, a position he held for about a year before he resigned and fled to exile 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…