Timeline
Timeline
29 May 1994
Government troops and militias massacre 500 Tutsi civilians and Hutu members of opposition parties in a refugee camp in Gitarama. The exchange of civilians between the two fighting parties is inexplicably halted, contrary to the earlier agreement brokered by UNAMIR. RPF forces take control of the strategic town of Ruhango in Gitarama Prefecture and advance towards Nyanza.
28 May 1994
27 May 1994
26 May 1994
25 May 1994
The United Nations Human Rights Commission unanimously adopts a resolution stating that “acts of genocide may have occurred in Rwanda” and plans for the dispatch of a special rapporteur on the ground to investigate the abuses committed.
The Rwandan embassy in Egypt announces to the interim government, a delivery of 35 tons of weapons, in violation of the embargo; the document mentions a transaction concluded in Paris.
The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) calls on the United Nations to extend the mandate of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former-Yugoslavia to prosecute the crimes now being committed in Rwanda.
24 May 1994
23 May 1994
A two-day truce is called to facilitate the visit of UN envoy lqbal Riza to Rwanda, but Government forces break the truce and shell RPF positions. The UN envoy accompanied by General Morris Baril meets with the RPF chairman in Mulindi, but fails to meet the Interim Government in Gitarama because neither side can guarantee his security. RPF forces continue to ask the Interahamwe militia to surrender their weapons. About 2,000 refugees return from camps in Burundi. They had fled from Bugesera, Gitarama, Butare, and Gikongoro.
22 May 1994
RPF seizes Kigali International Airport and Kanombe military camp, extending control over the north and east of the country and opening more evacuation routes for genocide survivors. Government forces continue to flee south ahead of the RPF advance. Refugees who had fled to Tanzania and Burundi in the wake of the massacres are continuing to return home. In Bugesera, more than 300 refugees cross from Burundi to Rukumberi Center and a number from Tanzania are received in Sake Commune of Kibungo Prefecture. Nyamata Hospital in Bugersera continues to receive wounded survivors of the massacres. About 200 are hospitalised and 300 outpatients report per day.
21 May 1994
The UN Secretary-General transfers his special representative to Rwanda, Jacques Roger Booh-Booh, from Kigali to Nairobi. He is supposed to liaise with regional leaders in East and Central Africa to coordinate the activities of the expanded UNAMIR force in Rwanda. The transfer is seen as related to RPF dissatisfaction with Booh-Booh. The RPF accused Booh-Booh of taking sides in the on-going conflict in Rwanda by supporting the Rwandan Government and stalling the establishment of the broad-based government. He is accused of accepting the CDR party into the proposed government, contrary to the Arusha Peace Agreement. New Zealand’s representative on the UN Security Council condemns member countries of the Council for allowing the Rwanda Interim Government to be represented on the Council. The New Zealand representative refuses to meet Interim Government Foreign Minister Jérôme Bicamumpaka and his colleagues, who are in New York to seek support from the international community.
20 May 1994
Over 300 bodies are recovered from Lake Victoria in Mpigi District in Uganda. RPF forces continue to rescue survivors of the massacres in Bugesera. About 300 people, most of them with machete cuts, receive medical treatment in Ntarama Hospital that is also accommodating 86 orphans. Refugees continue to return from Tanzania. In the last three days, 450 of them reported at the Rusumo border post. An RPF delegation headed by Patrick Mazimpaka visits the Centre for Strategic Studies in Washington, DC to report on the current situation in Rwanda. Mazimpaka says that allegations of RPF troops committing atrocities against civilians are false and that the source of the allegations are refugees in Tanzania – people who committed acts of genocide and are trying to cover their own crimes by shifting blame onto the RPF. He explains that RPF forces are governed by a strict code of conduct that bars them from taking the law into their own hands.