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Overview
 
In April 1994, extremist leaders of Rwanda's Hutu majority launched a campaign of extermination against the country's Tutsi minority. In 100 days, as many as 800,000 people were murdered and hundreds of thousands of women were raped. The Museum continues to highlight the Rwandan genocide because of the:
- Profound nature and scope of the violence
- Continued impact of the genocide on the entire Central African region
- Lessons Rwanda offers for responding to contemporary genocide
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The genocide ended in July 1994, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a Tutsi-led rebel force, pushed the extremists and their genocidal interim government out of the country. The United Nations reported that, “By October 1994, estimates suggested that out of a population of 7.9 million, at least half a million people had been killed. Some 2 million had fled to other countries and as many as 2 million people were internally displaced.” The consequences of the genocide continue to be felt. It left Rwanda devastated, hundreds of thousands of survivors traumatized, the country’s infrastructure in ruins, and over 100,000 accused perpetrators imprisoned. Justice and accountability, unity and reconciliation remain elusive.
The entire central African region remains destabilized as a result of the genocide. Beginning in 1996, neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo turned into the battleground for continuing armed conflict between Rwanda’s post-genocidal government and genocidaires who fled there following the genocide. For more recent information about this war and how it has changed, click here.
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