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The big idea: Between April and July 1994, extremists in Rwanda murdered around 800,000 people in about 100 days — most of them Tutsi, plus Hutu who opposed the killing.
The world had peacekeepers on the ground but chose not to stop it. This micro tracks the course of events and the interventions that failed.
Rwanda is a small country in central-east Africa whose people share one language and religion but were split into two main groups: the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority. Belgian colonial rulers had hardened this divide, and after independence in 1962 a Hutu-led government often treated Tutsi as outsiders.
In October 1990 a mostly-Tutsi rebel army, the RPF, invaded from Uganda and began a civil war against President Juvénal Habyarimana's government. That war is where the story of the genocide begins.
Spot it: the three stages: War (1990) leads to a peace deal (1993), which collapses into genocide (1994). Keep this spine in your head and every date will slot into place.
To answer exam questions well, you need the events in the right order and you need to know what each outside group did — or failed to do. Let's take the course of events first, then the interventions.
The course of events, 1993–1994
August 1993 — the Arusha Accords
Habyarimana's government and the RPF signed a peace deal, the Arusha Accords, to share power and end the war. Hutu extremists hated it.
October 1993 — UNAMIR arrives
The UN sent a peacekeeping force, UNAMIR, led by Canadian General Roméo Dallaire, to help the peace hold. It was small and weakly armed.
6 April 1994 — the trigger
A plane carrying President Habyarimana was shot down over the capital, Kigali, killing him. Who fired the missile is still disputed, but extremists used it as their signal.
7 April 1994 — the killing begins
Within hours, extremist Hutu soldiers and the Interahamwe militia set up roadblocks and began murdering Tutsi and moderate Hutu, including the prime minister.
April–July 1994 — 100 days
The killing spread nationwide, often with machetes and often neighbour against neighbour. A hate radio station, RTLM, urged Hutu on and named victims to hunt.
July 1994 — the RPF wins
The RPF, led by Paul Kagame, fought its way across the country, captured Kigali, and ended the genocide by military victory. About two million Hutu then fled abroad.
Peace deal, then a plane, then a hundred days.
Now the interventions. The hard truth is that the outside world had the information and the people on the ground to act, yet the major powers held back.
Here is what each did.
UNAMIR and the UN — pulled back, not sent in: General Dallaire warned the UN before the genocide that weapons were being stockpiled, but he was told not to act.
When ten Belgian peacekeepers were murdered on the first day, Belgium withdrew its troops, and in late April the UN Security Council cut UNAMIR to a few hundred soldiers instead of reinforcing it.
The great powers — a wall of words: The United States, still stung by losses in Somalia in 1993, refused to lead and even avoided the word 'genocide' to dodge any duty to act.
The UN passed a plan for a larger force (UNAMIR II) in May, but troops and equipment arrived far too late to save lives.
France — Opération Turquoise, June 1994: In late June, France launched Opération Turquoise, a UN-approved 'safe zone' in the south-west.
It did shelter some civilians, but critics argue it also let members of the defeated Hutu government and killers escape, because France had backed that government before.
| Group | What they did | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| UNAMIR / Dallaire | Warned early, then was ordered to stand down and shrink | Willing but blocked and abandoned |
| UN Security Council | Cut the force in April; approved a bigger one too late | Failed to act in time |
| USA & allies | Avoided the word 'genocide'; refused to lead | Deliberate inaction |
| France | Opération Turquoise safe zone (June) | Saved some, but let killers escape |
| RPF (Kagame) | Military advance across the country | The force that actually ended the killing |
The aftermath spills over: The genocide did not end cleanly in July 1994. Around two million Hutu, including many killers, fled into refugee camps in neighbouring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). From 1996 to 1998 those camps and cross-border raids helped drag the wider region into war — the violence outlasted 1994.
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How this is tested (Paper 1): Paper 1 is source-based, but the final 9-mark question also needs your own knowledge. A common task is to judge whether the international response failed.
Don't just describe the killing — weigh the actions and inaction of the UN, the great powers and France against each other.
'The international community bears the main responsibility for the scale of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.' Using your own knowledge, evaluate this claim.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
Common mistakes: Don't just narrate the 100 days — marks come from weighing who was responsible. And don't blur the groups: the UN, the great powers and France each acted differently, so treat them separately.