Nyarubuye massacre
The Nyarubuye massacre was the murder of an estimated 2,000 people in the Rwandan city of Nyarubuye, Kibungo Province on April 16-17 , 1994.
The victims were Tutsi and moderate Hutu who sought refuge in the Roman Catholic Church of Nyarubuye, about 81 kilometers east of the capital Kigali . In the church more than 500 people had brought themselves into supposed safety. All of them were murdered by Hutu soldiers. The Soldateska took first the church, then the school and finally workplaces near the football field in their deadly goings-on. Residents say that about 1,000 other people died in the process.
Reports indicate that men, women and children were indiscriminately killed with spears, machetes, clubs, hand grenades and rifles. The massacre was part of the genocide in Rwanda , in which extremist Hutu militias murdered around 800,000 to a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu from April to July 1994.
On December 3, 2003, a Rwandan court in Rukira, Kibungo Province found 18 men guilty of genocide. Gitera Rwamuhizi, a leader of the marauding groups, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The others received prison terms ranging from 7 to 16 years.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Donatella Lorch: New York Times of June 3, 1994: Heart of Rwanda's Darkness: Slaughter at a Rural Church (English), accessed on April 15, 2010