Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East 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 sobriquet "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.
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.
Juvénal Habyarimana was a Rwandan politician and military officer who was the second president of Rwanda, from 1973 until his assassination in 1994. He was nicknamed Kinani, a Kinyarwanda word meaning "invincible".
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias. While the Rwandan Constitution states that over 1 million people were killed, most scholarly estimates suggest between 500,000 and 662,000 Tutsi died. The genocide was marked by extreme violence, with victims often murdered by neighbors, and widespread sexual violence, with between 250,000 and 500,000 women raped.
Théoneste Bagosora was a Rwandan military officer. He was chiefly known for his key role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In 2011, the sentence was reduced to 35 years' imprisonment on appeal. He was due to be imprisoned until he was 89. According to René Lemarchand, Bagosora was "the chief organizer of the killings". On 25 September 2021, he died in a prison hospital in Mali, where he was being treated for heart issues.
Butare was a province (prefecture) of Rwanda prior to its dissolution in January 2006. Butare city was the second largest city in Rwanda and one of the nation's former twelve provinces. It is located in south-central region of the country and borders Burundi to the south. It had a population of 77.449 as of January 2006.
The Rwanda Defence Force is the military of the Republic of Rwanda. The country's armed forces were originally known as the Forces armées rwandaises (FAR),but following the Rwandan Civil War of 1990–1994 and the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, the victorious Rwandan Patriotic Front (Inkotanyi) renamed it the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), its army name during the struggle of 1990–1994. Later, it was renamed to its current name.
Jerome Clement Bicamumpaka is a Rwandan politician. He is one of the 402 co-founders of the Rwandan political party MDR, a democratic opposition party, created in Kigali on July 1, 1991. He was born on November 4, 1957, in Mukono (Rwaza), in Ruhondo commune, Ruhengeri prefecture.
Simon Bikindi was a Rwandan musician and singer who was formerly very popular in Rwanda. His patriotic and nationalist songs were playlist staples on the national radio station Radio Rwanda during the Rwandan Civil War. For his actions during the Rwandan genocide, he was tried and convicted for incitement to genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 2008. He died of diabetes at a Beninese hospital in December 2018.
Gitarama was one of the former twelve provinces (intara) of Rwanda and was situated in the centre of the country, to the west of the capital Kigali. Gitarama Prefecture was created in 1959, increasing the number of prefectures of Rwanda from eight to nine. In 2002, it was renamed a province, as were the other prefectures of Rwanda. It had an area of 2,187 square kilometres and a population of some 851,451 prior to its dissolution in January 2006. Gitarama was divided into 8 districts: Muhanga, Kayumbu, Kabagali, Ntenyo, Kamonyi, Ntongwe, Ndiza and Ruyumba; and two towns: Ruhango and Gitarama. Gitarama bordered the provinces Butare, Gikongoro, Kibuye, Gisenyi, Ruhengeri, Kigali-Ngali and Kigali City Tourist attractions included the Kamegeri rocks and the Busaga forest.
Ruhengeri Province was one of the twelve provinces of Rwanda until the end of 2005, when boundaries were redrawn to create five multiethnic provinces. The province was in the north of the country, bordered to the north by Uganda and to the northwest by the Democratic Republic of Congo. It consisted of 10 districts.
Tharcisse Renzaho is a Rwandan soldier, former politician and war criminal. He is best known for his role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
François-Xavier Nzuwonemeye is a former Rwandan soldier, who is chiefly known for his role in the Rwandan genocide.
The five provinces of Rwanda are divided into 30 districts. Each district is in turn divided into sectors, which are in turn divided into cells, which are in turn divided into villages.
Gasabo is a district (akarere) in Kigali city, the capital of Rwanda. The headquarter of Gasabo is located in Remera Sector. The district also includes large areas of the city itself, including Kacyiru, Kimironko, Remera, Nyarutarama and Kimihurura.
Father Wenceslas Munyeshyaka is a Rwandan priest working in France who was convicted of genocide by a Rwandan military court. Munyeshyaka was pursued in the French courts but in October 2015 the case was not continued because of the quality of the evidence. Despite the controversy and his Rwandan conviction he has been employed as a priest in France since 2001.
Froduald Karamira was a Rwandan politician who was found guilty of crimes in organising the implementation of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He was sentenced to death by a Rwandan court and was one of the last 22 individuals executed by Rwanda, in April 1998. He was an ethnic Tutsi.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Kigali, Rwanda.
André Rwamakuba was the Minister of Primary and Secondary Education in the interim government during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. He was born in Nduba, Gikomero commune in Kigali province and is a medical doctor who has studied at Butare University, and in Zaire and Belgium. He was arrested on 21 October 1998 in Namibia and indicted for complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity including extermination and murder. He was acquitted of all charges on 20 September 2006 by the ICTR.
In the year 2000, Rwanda began a decentralization process by adopting a National Decentralization Policy. The policy's objective were to promote good governance, to reduce poverty and to promote efficient, effective, and accountable service delivery.
