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Breaking-News >> TodayHistory On April 20, 1995, successive tragedies occurred in Rwanda, claiming the lives of approximately 5,000 people
Thirty years ago today, on April 20, 1995 (March 21, 1995 in the lunar calendar), approximately 5000 people died in successive massacres in Rwanda. The tragic scene after Tutsi soldiers of the Rwandan army massacred Hutus in the Kaiboho refugee camp. On April 20, 1995, armed soldiers of the Patriotic Front, mainly Tutsi, opened fire in the Kiboo refugee camp in southwestern Rwanda on the grounds that their weapons were seized, killing 13 Hutu refugees and injuring 22 others. On April 22, international aid agency personnel confirmed that a group of Hutu refugees tried to break through the blockade set up around the refugee camp, but were fired by armed soldiers of the Patriotic Front. The refugee camp fell into chaos. In the chaos, many Hutu refugees were trampled to death. Hundreds of Hutu refugees were killed. On April 23, RPF forces bombarded the Kiboo refugee camp in southwestern Rwanda with mortar shells, killing thousands of Hutu refugees. For three consecutive days, about 5000 people died in the Kiboo refugee camp. Rwanda, located in central Africa, consists of three tribes: Hutu (85%), Tutsi (14%) and Tewa (1%). The Lu tribal conflict has a long history. Historically, Western colonialists implemented "indirect rule" and "divide and rule" over Rwanda. They first used Tutsi to rule the Hutus, and then used Hutus to oppose and rule the Tutsi, resulting in four large-scale tribal bloody conflicts in 1959, 1963, 1967 and 1973. Groups after batches of Tutsi were forced to flee to neighboring countries. As of October 1990, as many as 500,000 refugees had been exiled abroad, the vast majority of whom were Tutsi. As a result, the two tribes that originally lived in harmony before the colonial era formed a deep hatred. Tribal conflicts or tribal vendetta killings occurred whenever there was trouble. This civil war was the result of the long-term accumulation and deterioration of the conflicts between the Lu tribes. In October 1990, the anti-government armed force "Patriotic Front", mainly Tutsi refugees, invaded Uganda, quickly controlled the northeastern region and advanced towards the capital Kigali, thus beginning a three-year civil war. Under the mediation of OAU and neighbouring countries, the two parties to the conflict began negotiations in July 1992 and reached a peace agreement in August 1993. At the end of October, the United Nations sent peacekeeping troops to supervise the implementation of the agreement and the establishment of a transitional government in accordance with the peace agreement. However, the two sides have deep grievances and differences, making it difficult to implement the peace agreement and delaying the formation of a transitional government. On April 6, 1994, after attending the regional summit meeting in Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, on resolving the tribal conflict between Rwanda and Burundi, Rwandan President Habyarimana (a Hutu ethnic minority) returned to Kigali on the same plane with the President of Burundi. The plane was shot down by a rocket over the airport, and the plane was destroyed and killed. After the news broke, Hutu soldiers and extremists began to search for and massacre Tutsi and Hutus who supported and sympathized with the Tutsi in the capital and across the country. On April 17, 1995, the Rwandan government announced the closure of the refugee camp and established a blockade around it, suspecting that the former government soldiers who committed the massacre of Tutsi in 1994 were hiding in the camp. In a sense, this tribal vendetta in Rwanda is also a battle for land. Rwanda's population was 3 million when it became independent, but increased to 8 million in 1995. Its land area is only 26,000 square kilometers, making it the country with the highest population density in Africa. The per capita cultivated land of farmers is less than 0.5 hectares, and many people have no land to grow and find it difficult to make a living. The refugees are returning home, which makes domestic residents oppose them for fear of endangering their survival. The economy is backward, various social conflicts are intensifying, especially the way foreign refugees finally choose to return home armed, resulting in this unprecedented human disaster. In addition, the impact of the wave of "multi-party democracy" in the West is another inducement for the intensification of the civil war in Rwanda. Hutu bodies massacred by Tutsi soldiers were thrown into mass graves. In April, some 1.5 million Rwandans fled the country, leaving some 27,000 children separated from their families in the chaos News raw data sources → https://www.abtool.cn/today_detail/1d9n.html 17WorldNews[2025.09.28-06:27] 访问:85
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