A plane carrying the presidents of two African countries was shot down on this day in 1994. And a horrific genocide ensued
Rwanda sees red
Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutus, were in the plane which was shot down over the Rwandan capital Kigali. They were returning from a meeting where they discussed ways to end the ethnic violence between the majority Hutus & minority Tutsis
Burundi hit too
The violence leading up to the meeting was particularly bad in Burundi where 100,000 had been killed since the assassination of the country’s first elected president, a Hutu, in October 1993, the BBC reported then. The April 6 assassinations worsened the conflict, especially in Rwanda
Imperial intrigues
The two nations had been one, Ruanda-Urundi, from 1890s to 1962. The Belgians supported Tutsis over the Hutu majority, worsening the ethnic tensions
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus killed between April and June 1994 by the Rwandan military, which was helped by Hutu civilians