The Rwandan Genocide s Impact On The Experiences Of The...

The genocide in Rwanda is representative of one of the most horrendous and unnecessary losses to life in recent world history. Rwanda’s crisis is a historical product, not a biological fatality or a ‘spontaneous’ bestial outburst. Both the Tutsi and the Hutu, were not predestined for all eternity to disembowel one another because the taller and thinner of the two came from Egypt, while the shorter stockier ones were born in the shores of Lake Kivu. This genocide has a history filled with complex roots, many contradictions, and brutal twists of fates, sudden accelerations, and periods of spiritual collapse. Hence, the aim of this paper is to examine, the Rwandan genocide’s impact on the lived experiences of the children and youths present†¦show more content†¦Rwanda became formally independent on the first of July in the year 1962, under the republican government. Tens of thousands of Tutsis fled in 1963 to nearby nations of Uganda, Burundi, and T anzania because of increasing interethnic violence; as a result, many of them were able to form a political military group called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and their successful military coup in 1973 brought Major General Juvenal Habyarimana to power in Rwanda. Due to the growing internal dissent by conservatives because of his negotiations with the RPF and his move to a multiparty elections, it did not come as a shock when the presidential plane carrying President Habyarimana was shot down over the capital of Kigali on the night of April 6 1994. Immediately after the Habyarimana’s death, a carefully planned genocide began, with the mass slaughtering of large amounts of Tutsis all across the state – as well as some key Hutu people in support of a multiethnic government; resulting in the killings of over half a million people within the span of two months. Of those who survived this genocide, many children witnessed the murder of their family members, and hundreds of thousands of children being orphaned, in addition with two hundred and