25 years ago, more than half a million people were killed in just 100 days during the Rwandan genocide. An estimated 800,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans, most from the francophone minority Tutsi community, were killed by ethnic Hutu extremists over 100 days in 1994. The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, was a mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda during the Rwandan Civil War. The war started started in 1990 and it was directed by members of the Hutu majority government during the 100-day period from 7 April to mid-July 1994.
Rwanda has accused France of ignoring the genocide against the Tutsi. Also the French army, as part of United Nations peacekeeping forces, supported the Hutu government and helped some of the perpetrators to escape.
Watch this France 24 exclusive documentary!
We hear from witnesses and observers in an effort to understand what led to one of the worst genocides in history.
In 2015, France’s Constitutional Council ruled that all French army and diplomatic archives should remain secret, even if President Francois Hollande had announced that the Rwanda archives would be declassified.
French President Emmanuel Macron ordered now an investigation for the France’s involvement, dealing with ‘Black’ pages of History. After 25 years, France with a panel of experts will investigate the genocide conditions.
During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, Hutu extremists set out to destroy the Tutsi minority with systematic brutality. Today we stand with the victims. Twenty-five years after the Rwandan genocide, both Kigali and Paris are still trying to shed light on some of the grey areas of the massacre of nearly one million people between April and July 1994.
- Did the then French government turn a blind eye to the evidence?
- Did it allow some of the perpetrators to go free?
