Human occupation of Rwanda is thought to have begun shortly after the last ice age. By the 11th century, the inhabitants had organized into a number of kingdoms. In the 19th century, Mwami (king) Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda conducted a decades-long process of military conquest and administrative consolidation that resulted in the kingdom coming to control most of what is now Rwanda. The colonial powers, Germany and Belgium, allied with the Rwandan court.
The Hutu, also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or social group which is native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great Lakes Twa.
The Tutsi, also called Watusi, Watutsi or Abatutsi, are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi.
The Rwandan Patriotic Front, is the ruling political party in Rwanda.
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred between 7 April and 15 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.
Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993, to July 31, 1994. It played a significant role in inciting the Rwandan genocide that took place from April to July 1994, and has been described by some scholars as having been a de facto arm of the Hutu government.
The Kingdom of Rwanda was a Nile source sovereign state in the former Kitara expanse. Now the modern-day Republic of Rwanda, It was ruled by a Tutsi monarchy. It was one of the oldest and the most centralized kingdoms in the Central and East Africa region. It was later annexed under German and Belgian colonial rule while retaining some of its autonomy. The Tutsi monarchy was abolished in 1961 after ethnic violence erupted between the Hutu and the Tutsi during the Belgian-led Hutu Revolution which started in 1959. After a 1961 referendum, Rwanda became a Hutu-dominated republic under discreet supervisory of the Belgian overseers but still received its independence from Belgium in 1962.
Kibeho is a sector and small town in south Rwanda, which became known outside of that country because of reported apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ occurring between 1981 and 1989. It is also known for the Kibeho Massacre in April 1995, when several thousand internally displaced people were killed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army.
Kigeli IV Rwabugiri was the king (mwami) of the Kingdom of Rwanda in the mid-nineteenth century. He was among the last Nyiginya kings in a ruling dynasty that had traced their lineage back four centuries to Gihanga, the first 'historical' king of Rwanda whose exploits are celebrated in oral chronicles. He was a Tutsi with the birth name Sezisoni Rwabugiri. He was the first king in Rwanda's history to come into contact with Europeans. He established an army equipped with guns he obtained from Germans and prohibited most foreigners, especially Arabs, from entering his kingdom.
Ferdinand Nahimana is a Rwandan historian, who was convicted of incitement to genocide for his role in the Rwandan genocide.
Our Lady of Kibeho, also known as Our Lady of Sorrows of Kibeho, is a Catholic title of the Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the Marian apparitions reported in the 1980s by several adolescents in Kibeho, south-western Rwanda. The young visionaries were Alphonsine Mumureke, Nathalie Mukamazimpaka and Marie Claire Mukangango.
These are some of the articles related to Rwanda on the English Wikipedia pages:
Our Lady of the Nile is a French-language novel by Rwanda-born writer Scholastique Mukasonga, originally published in 2012 by Éditions Gallimard. It is Mukasonga's fourth book and first novel. The English-language translation, published in the United States in 2014 by Archipelago Books, was done by Melanie Mauthier, a poet and writer from the United Kingdom.
Scholastique Mukasonga is a French-Rwandan author born in the former Gikongoro province of Rwanda. In 2012, She won the prix Renaudot and the prix Ahmadou-Kourouma for her book Our Lady of the Nile. In addition to being a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Mukasonga was rewarded in 2014 with the Seligmann Prize against racism and intolerance and in 2015 with the prize Société des gens de lettres. She currently resides in Normandy, France.
In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House of Canada; it has also been translated into Dutch and French. The book describes alleged war crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Rwanda's ruling political party, during its ascent to power in the 1990s.
Malaika Uwamahoro is a Rwandan-born actress, poet, singer, and social justice activist. She resides in Portland, Maine, United States.
Kinyarwanda is a 2011 film based on the Rwandan genocide.
Rwanda and Juliet is a post-Rwandan genocide documentary by Canadian producer Ben Proudfoot.
Ramata-Toulaye Sy is a French-Senegalese film director and screenwriter.
