Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is highly elevated, giving it the soubriquet "land of a thousand hills", with its geography dominated by mountains in the west and savanna to the southeast, with numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate to subtropical, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year. It is the most densely populated mainland African country; among countries larger than 10,000 km2, it is the fifth-most densely populated country in the world. Its capital and largest city is Kigali.
Rwanda is a de facto one-party state ruled by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and its leader Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide against members of the Tutsi ethnic group. Although Rwanda is nominally democratic, elections are manipulated in various ways, which include banning opposition parties, arresting or assassinating critics, and electoral fraud.
Kigali is the capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. As a primate city, Kigali is a relatively new city. It has been Rwanda's economic, cultural, and transport hub since it was founded as an administrative outpost in 1907, and became the capital of the country at independence in 1962, shifting focus away from Huye.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred between 7 April and 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide, the actual number of fatalities is unclear, and some estimates suggest that the real number killed was likely lower. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.
George Henry Brandis is an Australian former politician. He was a Senator for Queensland from 2000 to 2018, representing the Liberal Party, and was a cabinet minister in the Abbott and Turnbull governments. He was later High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2018 to 2022.
Navanethem "Navi" Pillay is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. A South African of Indian Tamil origin, Pillay was the first non-white woman judge of the High Court of South Africa. She has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008 and was extended an additional two years in 2012. In September 2014 Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad succeeded her in her position as High Commissioner for Human Rights. In April 2015, Pillay became the 16th Commissioner of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty. She is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.
Sir Iakoba Taeia Italeli is a Tuvaluan politician who was the governor-general of Tuvalu from 16 April 2010, until 22 August 2019, when he resigned to contest in the 2019 general election. He was not successful in that election, however he was elected as a member of parliament in the 2024 Tuvaluan general election.
Hassan Bubacar Jallow is a Gambian judge who has served as Chief Justice of the Gambia since February 2017. He was the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) from 2003 to 2016, and Prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) from 2012 to 2016, both at the rank of United Nations Under Secretary-General. He served as Minister of Justice and Attorney General from 1984 to 1994 under President Dawda Jawara.
Tharcisse Karugarama is a Rwandan lawyer and politician. A lawyer/attorney by profession, Karugarama was the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General in the Rwandan government for about 7 years.
Kottayan Katankot Venugopal is an Indian constitutional lawyer and a senior advocate in the Supreme Court of India. He was enrolled as an advocate on January 27, 1954. On 1 July 2017, he was appointed as the Attorney General of India and retired on 30 September 2022. He is Patron of SAARCLAW and earlier has been its President. He is founder of M K Nambyar SAARCLAW Centre For Advanced Legal Studies at the NALSAR University of Law.
Charles Ayodeji Adeogun-Phillips is a former United Nations genocide and war crimes prosecutor, international lawyer and founder of Charles Anthony (Lawyers) LLP.
India–Rwanda relations are the foreign relations between the Republic of India and the Republic of Rwanda. India is represented in Rwanda through its High Commission in Kigali which opened on 15 August 2018. Rwanda has been operating its High Commission in New Delhi since 1999 and appointed its first resident High Commissioner in 2001.
The High Commission of Rwanda in London is the diplomatic mission of Rwanda in the United Kingdom and also the home of the Rwanda diplomatic mission to Ireland. The High Commission is located at 120 to 122 Seymour Place, London, near to Marylebone and Baker Street underground stations.
The Cabinet of Rwanda consists of the Prime Minister, Ministers, Ministers of State and other members nominated by the President. Members of Cabinet are selected from political organisations based on the number of seats they hold in the Chamber of Deputies, but members of Cabinet cannot themselves belong to the Chamber.
Ang Cheng Hock, SC, is a former Judge of the Supreme Court of Singapore and the current Deputy Attorney-General of Singapore.
Fanfan Rwanyindo Kayirangwa is a Rwandan politician who has been the Cabinet Minister of Public Service and Labour in the Rwandan cabinet, since 31 August 2017.
Frank Rusagara (1955) is a retired Brigadier General of the Rwanda Defense Force. He was arrested and charged with inciting insurrection and tarnishing the government’s image. Initially sentenced to 20 years imprisonment, he is now serving 15 years after the Court of Appeal in Kigali reduced his sentence while upholding his conviction in 2019.
Tom Byabagamba (1967) is a former Colonel of the Rwanda Defense Force and a former head of the Presidential Guard unit. He was arrested and charged with inciting insurrection and tarnishing the government's image. Initially sentenced to 21 years imprisonment, he is now serving 15 years after the Court of Appeal in Kigali reduced his sentence while upholding his conviction in 2019. The court also stripped Byabagamba of his rank.
Guillaume Kavaruganda is a Rwandan career diplomat who has spent the majority of his career serving in a number of diplomatic capacities.
Jean De DieuUwihanganye, is a Rwandan Engineer and Politician.
