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Return to Rwanda
People & Power investigates the plight of Hutus in Rwanda 16 years after the genocide.
Last Modified: 26 Jan 2010 14:17 GMT

More than 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu sympathisers were killed during the Rwandan genocide [EPA]

In April 1994, the world watched in horror as the central African state of Rwanda tore itself apart.

Long-standing tensions between Hutus and Tutsis, the two main ethnic groups, exploded when the plane of Juvenal Habyarimana, the Hutu president, was shot down.
 
Exactly who killed the president has never been established but the effect was instantaneous.
 
An unofficial Hutu militia went on a genocidal rampage along with thousands of ordinary Hutus in a spasm of ethnic hatred brought to fever pitch by years of anti-Tutsi propaganda.
 
The resulting bloodbath saw more than 800,000 Tutsis massacred and sparked the return of the exiled Rwandan Patriotic Front, which captured the capital Kigali.

Fearing reprisals, as many as two million Hutus then fled across the border to what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Sixteen years on many of those same Hutus want to return home, as part of a reconciliation and repatriation programme sponsored by the UN and the Rwandan government.

What sort of welcome awaits them? Sorious Samura went to find out for People & Power.

This episode of People & Power can be seen from Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at the following times GMT: Wednesday: 0600, 1230; Thursday: 0130, 1400, 1930; Friday: 0630, 1630; Saturday: 0330, 2030; Sunday: 0030, 0530; Monday: 0830.

Source:
Al Jazeera
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