Former PM defends Iraq invasion and says failure to confront Assad regime would have ramifications far beyond region The world will face terrible consequences over many years to come for failing to intervene in Syria, Tony Blair has said. The former prime minister, who serves as the envoy for the Middle East quartet of the UN, US, EU and Russia, said the failure to confront President Bashar al-Assad...
Former archbishop of Rwanda says he warned Anglican church that clergy backgrounds had not been fully checked A former Anglican archbishop of Rwanda has challenged a claim by the Church of England that he endorsed the appointment of a priest in Worcestershire who is under investigation over accusations that he was complicit in the 1994 genocide. As Rwanda prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the...
In the poorest country in the world, President Pierre Nkurunziza is intent, say opponents, on hanging on to power and his private stadium It's about midday as four ragged-trousered labourers, hoes on their shoulders, climb a hill in Burundi and spot a foreigner with a camera. "You can't take pictures of that," they warn him, pointing at what looks like a castle rising out of the trees at...
French justice minister will not attend commemorations marking 20th anniversary of genocide, after Paul Kagame's comments France has reacted with fury after the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, renewed accusations of direct French involvement in the 1994 genocide, on the eve of ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary. The French government announced that the justice minister, Christiane Taubira, would...
In these extracts from Patrick Reed's documentary Fight Like Soldiers, Die Like Children, he explains how the world ignored the massacres in Rwanda 20 years ago while former child soldiers explain how they are still used to kill Find out more about the full film here Continue reading... ...
Businesses boarded up and building under way but questions remain over who can afford planned new homes and offices It has been conceived as one of the continent's most ambitious urban planning projects: a city of gleaming high-rise towers, arching pedestrian walkways, green spaces, fountains and an effective public transport system . The reimagined Kigali will be decentralised, with satellite towns,...
31 March - 4 April: Read up on the week's winners, losers, controversies and reports Satinah , an Indonesian maid who has been spared from execution in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of murdering her employer. Satinah said she hit her employer, Nura al-Garib, in self-defence . Multimedia Global development reading list It's World Health Day on Monday, and this year's theme is vector-borne diseases....
The situation in the Central African Republic is dangerously similar to that of Rwanda in 1994. This time, the west must heed the warnings When Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire, the former UN force commander in Rwanda and now a Canadian senator, calls once again for urgent action to protect civilians at risk in an impoverished African country , one would expect the whole world to listen, particularly...
Country has seen dramatic progress since 1994 genocide that left it one of the world's poorest and sickest nations Twenty years after the genocide that killed up to a million and left Rwanda one of the world's poorest and sickest nations, life expectancy in the country has doubled and it is on course to be the first in Africa to meet the UN millennium development goals' health targets. This analysis...
After almost two decades of legal argument only a few of the thousands involved in the 1994 massacres have been convicted Twenty years after the Rwandan genocide barely 70 individuals out of thousands involved in the 1994 massacres have been convicted by the UN-backed court that was designed to deliver justice. The international criminal tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) pioneered the first genocide trials...
The horrific events of April 1994 continue to shape the thinking of today's policymakers and peacemakers 'Rwanda is our nightmare, South Africa is our dream," wrote the Nigerian author Wole Soyinka, reflecting on the events of April 1994 the most momentous month in Africa's post-independence history. Even as South Africans formed endless human chains to vote for Nelson Mandela as their first black...
Survivors of the slaughter were described as the lucky ones but many, haunted by the memories, found it difficult to move on In those early months after the slaughter, as the stunned survivors confronted an existence saturated in pain and despair, a saying took hold in Rwanda: condemned to live. It was heard from parents who saw their children butchered, from Tutsis who by some random stroke of fate...
Diane Mrosa, 19, is studying literature. She would like to continue her education overseas one day I live with my mother and my little sister; I never had the chance to meet my father. My childhood wasn't at all good. It was hard to live because there was only my mother to provide for everything, food, school books it was a real struggle. ...
Diane Umutoni, 18, is a student from Kigali. She believes the long-term outlook for Rwanda is bright My first memory is how the neighbours would come to our house in the night. The relatives of the man who raped my mother would shout and put metal poles under the door. I didn't know what was happening, why my mother was feeling miserable and crying. I would sleep with my brother in one room and they...
Giselle Abera, 19, is from Eastern province, Rwanda. She is studying hoteliery and hopes one day to manage her own hotel During my childhood I lived with other children who I took to be my siblings. When I was young I didn't know what had happened and I could be like the others. But when I found out, you understand, it all changed. ...
Marie-Jeanne Mushimiyimana is from Kamonyi district. She is 19, enjoys football, and plans to become a public administrator I was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after the genocide. My mum was taken as a sex slave by the Interahamwe, but escaped during a battle. She doesn't like to talk about what happened, but she told me I was born of rape. ...
Olivier Mbarushimana, 19, is from Eastern province. He worries that lack of funding will thwart his dream of becoming a doctor I realised I had no father during my childhood, but my mother said: "Although you have no father, you must behave well." I came round to it, but it is hard. ...
Patrick Nbungutse, 18, is from Kamonyi district. He plans to become a lawyer and says his mother is proud of him My best subject in school is history. I like learning what happened in the past in the world and in Rwanda. I like listening to the people in the village talking. We learn about the genocide in a module of history at school; we learn that the tribes of Rwanda were divided and that one tribe...
Twenty years ago, nearly 1 million Rwandans were slaughtered in 100 days of frenzied sectarian violence. As the country prepares to mark the anniversary of the genocide, Alexandra Topping meets six young people who, though born from rape, retain an optimism that offers hope of a brighter future. Click on the portraits below to read their stories...
To mark 20 years since Rwanda's 100-day massacre, in which 800,000 people were killed, we look at the key ways the country has dealt with its challenges On 6 April 1994, with the world's media focused on the election of Nelson Mandela, a plane was shot down in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. It had been carrying Rwanda's president, Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Hutu president...