The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, paid tribute this Tuesday, April 7, to the victims of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda against the Tutsis, which is celebrating its 32nd anniversary, highlighting that “we must learn from the mistakes of the past”.
“On the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, we mourn the loss of the victims and pay tribute to the survivors,” said António Guterres on the social network X, adding that “we must learn from the mistakes of the past and protect the living, rejecting hatred, incendiary rhetoric and incitement to violence.”
The International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda is a date celebrated every year on April 7 since 2004, after being established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2003.
The date marks the beginning of the genocide perpetrated against members of the Tutsi minority by the extremist Hutu majority government.
The tensions between these two groups, which, depending on each moment in their history, had more or less privileges thanks to the marginalization or exploitation of the other, gave rise to a civil war (1990-1994) between the pro-Hutu government and the rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR), founded by Tutsis exiled in Uganda.
On the night of April 6, 1994, the plane in which the then Presidents of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, and of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutus, were traveling, was shot down when the aircraft was preparing to land in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
The murder was the trigger for the genocide against the Tutsis, which caused the death of more than a million people in about a hundred days.
For the secretary general, the genocide is considered one of the darkest chapters in history.
The genocide in Rwanda is considered one of the worst ethnic massacres in recent human history.
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