On July 21, 1994, a Rwandan refugee girl weeps beside the dead bodies of her parents in a refugee camp about 10 km outside Goma, Zaire. Hutus had fled from the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in Rwanda. Thousands of Hutu refugees reached refugee camps, but cholera and other epidemics claimed many lives.
Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, drove millions of Hutu Rwandans to the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya in a five-month period in 1994. Millions of Hutu Rwandans had already been killed within five months. In Rwanda under Paul Kagame, dead Rwandans had littered the ridges of a thousand hills in the space of five months. Within five months, Paul Kagame had set up roadblocks throughout Rwanda to keep Hutu men from fleeing Agafuni; within five months, millions of Hutu Rwandans had already lost their country, their parents, their uncles, their relatives, their sisters, their brothers, and their grandfathers.
Under Paul Kagame, Rwanda turned into a jungle in the space of five months in 1994. Paul Kagame ordered killings that not even the Interahamwe militia dared to carry out. Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front, formed by Tutsis, carried out attacks on religious leaders and refugees. Paul Kagame ordered the massacre of three Catholic bishops who had taken refuge in Kabgayi Cathedral. Kagame ordered their extermination solely because they were Bantu. Auxiliary bishops, priests, nuns, brothers, lay church leaders, youth leaders, and other clergy were also massacred. The tragic mother, Esperance Mukashema, a four-year-old Tutsi boy who took refuge in the church with her, Esperance Mukashema, a Hutu survivor of the genocide by the Tutsis, and her four-year-old son were killed along with all the catholic clergy in Gakura.
The Rwandan genocide broke out from April 7 to July 15, 1994, when Hutu extremists massacred Tutsis. The Hutu genocide killed 1,074,017 people, 94% of whom were Tutsis, and ended on July 4 when the Tutsi Patriotic Front of Rwanda overran the entire country, ending Tutsi genocide rule in Rwanda since 1994. After the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, about 2 million Hutus fled to neighboring countries, especially to refugee camps in Zaire, fearing reprisals.
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