Revisiting the Rwandan Genocide

Anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million people were massacred [AP]

Anand Naidoo sits in for Riz this week.

For 100 days in the summer of 1994, Rwanda degenerated into one of the worst civil wars in history. Anywhere between 500,000 and 1 million people were massacred when two ethnic Hutu militias launched their campaign to decimate their fellow Rwandans, mainly from the ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus who would not take part in the genocide. People were buried alive, shot, chopped up with machetes, beaten mercilessly, thrown out of cars, set on fire, and left to rot in pits.

One boy managed to escape to New York with the help of some American media correspondents. Years after the war, JB Rutagarama returned to his homeland with a video camera to document his journey. Besides finding his mother, who he thought was dead, Rutagarama captured a nation still healing from its wounds. His film is Back Home, and on Tuesday, we will discuss his experiences, his escape, and his country’s future.

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This episode of Riz Khan aired on 21 August 2007

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