Kibeho incident

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The Kibeho incident is an incident that occurred in a camp for internally displaced persons near Kibeho, Rwanda on April 22, 1995. Between 500 and 2000 people in the camp were killed by soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army.

[edit] History

Following the Rwandan Genocide and the victory by the army of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), many ethnic Hutus, including a large number of those who had committed genocide, fled from the RPF-controlled areas to zones controlled by the French Opération Turquoise and the neighbouring states of Burundi, Zaire, and Tanzania.

When the French withdrew in August 1994, the administration of the camps was taken over by UNAMIR and a number of aid organizations. The new Rwandan government, dominated by the victorious Tutsi RPF, wished to identify those people in the camps who had committed genocide.

The RPA established a tight cordon around the camp with the aim of forcibly separating known genocidaires from others. Following a day of mounting tension between those in the camp and the RPA soldiers, a mass movement of people began moving against the RPA lines. At this point, the RPA fired at people in the camp, killing hundreds. ^[1]