One of the reasons many people in Uganda have very little and live day to day is because many are escapees due to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. This is not the entire problem, but it certainly added to the lack of land for so many of its “transplants.”
What happened in Rwanda in 1994 seems almost incomprehensible. In just 100 days, government forces, militias, and regular citizens carried out a genocide against the Tutsi social and ethnic minority population. An estimated 800,000 to one million Tutsi were killed, and mass sexual violence was committed against Tutsi women and girls. How could this have happened?
The Great Refugee Crisis is the common name for the situation beginning with the exodus in April 1994 of over two million Rwandans to neighboring countries, including Uganda, which is just north of Rwanda, in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Many of the refugees were Hutu fleeing the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front, which had gained control of the country at the end of the genocide. The knowledge that humanitarian aid was being diverted to further the aims of the genocidaires led many humanitarian organizations to withdraw their assistance. The conflict escalated until the start of the First Congo War in 1996 when RPF-supported rebels invaded Zaire and sought to repatriate the refugees.
I took the following pictures at the Rwanda Genocide Museum, it was hard to visit that place, and I included only a few of the pictures. Some are too difficult to see, and I still want to cry when I see them.
Little did these people know that the clothing they put on that morning would be enshrined for all to see.
About Author
