Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira The assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on the evening of 6 April 1994 was the catalyst for the Rwandan Genocide . The airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali , Rwanda . The assassination set in motion some of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century , the Rwandan Genocide and the First Congo War . Responsibility for the attack is disputed , with most theories proposing as suspects either the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front ( RPF ) or government - aligned Hutu Power extremists opposed to negotiation with the RPF . Regardless of the cause of the assassination , it unquestionably resulted in the immediate national mobilization of anti - Tutsi militias , the Interahamwe , who proceeded to set up roadblocks across Rwanda and slaughter every Tutsi or Hutu sympathizer until driven away by rebel RPF troops . Background and prelude . In 1990 , the Rwandan Civil War began when the Rwandan Patriotic Front , dominated by the Tutsi ethnic group , invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda . Most of the RPF fighters were either refugees or the sons of refugees who had fled ethnic purges by the Hutu government in the middle of the century . The attempt to overthrow the government failed , though the RPF was able to maintain control of a border region . As it became clear that the war had reached a stalemate , the sides began peace negotiations in May 1992 , which resulted in the signing in August 1993 of the Arusha Accords to create a power - sharing government . However , the war radicalized the internal opposition . The RPF ' s show of force intensified support for the so - called " Hutu Power " ideology . Hutu Power portrayed the RPF as an alien force intent on reinstating the Tutsi monarchy and enslaving the Hutus : a prospect which must be resisted at all costs . This ideology was embraced most wholeheartedly by the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic ( CDR ) who advocated racist principles known as the Hutu Ten Commandments . This political force led to the collapse of the first Habyarimana government in July 1993 , when Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye criticized the president in writing for delaying a peace agreement . Habyarimana , a member of the MRND political party , dismissed Nsengiyarmye and appointed Agathe Uwilingiyimana , who was perceived to be less sympathetic to the RPF , in his stead . However , the main opposition parties then refused to support Madame Agathe ' s appointment , each splitting into two factions : one calling for the unwavering defense of Hutu Power and the other , labeled " moderate " , that sought a negotiated settlement to the war . As Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana was unable to form a coalition government , ratification of the Arusha Accords was impossible . The most extreme of the Hutu parties , the CDR , which openly called for ethnic cleansing of the Tutsi , was entirely unrepresented in the Accords . The security situation deteriorated throughout 1993 . Armed Hutu militias attacked Tutsis throughout the country , while high - ranking adherents of Hutu Power began to consider how the security forces might be turned to genocide . In February 1994 , Roméo Dallaire , the head of the military force attached to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda ( UNAMIR ) , which had been sent to observe the implementation of the Arusha Accords , informed his superiors , " Time does seem to be running out for political discussions , as any spark on the security side could have catastrophic consequences . " In the United Nations Security Council , early April 1994 saw a sharp disagreement between the United States and the non - permanent members of the council over UNAMIR . Despite a classified February Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) analysis predicting half a million deaths if the Arusha process failed , the U . S . was attempting to reduce its international commitments in the wake of the Somalia debacle and lobbied to end the mission . A compromise extending UNAMIR ' s mandate for three more months was finally reached on the evening of Tuesday , the fifth of April . Meanwhile , Habyarimana was finishing regional travel . On April 4 , he had flown to Zaire to meet with president Mobutu Sese Seko and on the sixth flew to Dar es Salaam , Tanzania for a one - day regional summit for heads of state convened by Tanzania ' s President . On the return trip that evening he was joined by Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira , and a couple of his ministers , who preferred the faster Dassault Falcon 50 that the French government had given to Habyarimana over Ntaryamira ' s own presidential plane . According to interim Prime Minister Jean Kambanda ' s testimony to the ICTR , President Mobutu Sese Seko of neighboring Zaire ( now DRC ) had warned Habyarimana not to go to Dar es Salaam on April 6 . Mobutu reportedly said this warning had come from a very senior official in the Elysée Palace in Paris . There was a link between this warning , said Mobutu , and the subsequent suicide in the Elysée of François de Grossouvre , a senior high - ranking official working for President François Mitterrand , an official who had killed himself on April 7 after learning about the downing of the Falcon . Description of attack . Shortly before 8 : 20 pm local time ( 6 : 20 pm UTC ) , the presidential jet circled once around Kigali International Airport before coming in for final approach in clear skies . A weekly flight by a Belgian C - 130 Hercules carrying UNAMIR troops returning from leave had been scheduled to land before the presidential jet , but was waved off to give the president priority . A surface - to - air missile struck one of the wings of the Dassault Falcon , before a second missile hit its tail . The plane erupted into flames in mid - air before crashing into the garden of the presidential palace , exploding on impact . The plane carried three French crew and nine passengers . The attack was witnessed by numerous people . One of two Belgian officers in the garden of a house in Kanombe , the district in which the airport is located , saw and heard the first missile climb into the sky , saw a red flash in the sky and heard an aircraft engine stopping , and then another missile climb . He immediately called Major de Saint - Quentin , part of the French team attached to the Rwandan para - commando battalion Commandos de recherche et d ' action en profondeur , who advised him to organize protection for his Belgian comrades . Similarly , another Belgian officer stationed in an unused airport control tower saw the lights of an approaching aircraft , a light traveling upward from the ground and then the aircraft lights going out . This was followed by a second light rising from the same place as the first and the plane turning into a falling ball of fire . This officer immediately radioed his company commander , who confirmed with the operational control tower that the plane was the presidential aircraft . A Rwandan soldier in the military camp in Kanombe recalled , You know , its engine sound was different from other planes ; that is , the president ' s engine ' s sound . . . We were looking towards where the plane was coming from , and we saw a projectile and we saw a ball of flame or flash and we saw the plane go down ; and I saw it . I was the leader of the bloc so I asked the soldiers to get up and I told them " Get up because Kinani " [ a Kinyarwanda nickname for Habyarimana meaning " famous " or " invincible " ] " has been shot down . ' They told me , " You are lying . " I said , " It ' s true . " So I opened my wardrobe , I put on my uniform and I heard the bugle sound . A Rwandan officer cadet at the airport who was listening to the Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines heard the announcer state that the presidential jet was coming in to land . The spoken broadcast then stopped suddenly in favor of a selection of classical music . Individuals killed . All twelve people aboard the Falcon were killed . They were : French aircraft crew : Immediate reaction . Chaos ensued on the ground . The Presidential Guard , who had been waiting to escort the president home from the airport , threatened people with their weapons . Twenty Belgian peacekeepers who had been stationed along the perimeter of the airport were surrounded by the Presidential Guard and some were disarmed . The airport was closed and the circling Belgian Hercules was diverted to Nairobi . In Camp Kanombe , the bugle call immediately after the crash was taken by soldiers to mean that the Rwandan Patriotic Front had attacked the camp . The soldiers rushed to their units ' armories to equip themselves . Soldiers of the paracommando brigade Commandos de recherche et d ' action en profondeur assembled on the parade ground at around 9 pm while members of other units gathered elsewhere in the camp . At least one witness stated that about an hour after the crash there was the sound of gunfire in Kanombe . Munitions explosions at Camp Kanombe were also initially reported . The senior officer for the Kigali operational zone called the Ministry of Defence with the news . Defence Minister Augustin Bizimana was out of the country , and the officer who took the call failed to reach Col . Théoneste Bagosora , the director of the office of the minister of defence , who was apparently at a reception given by UNAMIR ' s Bangladesh i officers . The news of the crash , initially reported as an explosion of UNAMIR ' s ammunition dump , was quickly relayed to UNAMIR Force Commander Dallaire . He ordered UNAMIR Kigali sector commander Luc Marchal to send a patrol to the crash site . Numerous people began calling UNAMIR seeking information , including Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and Lando Ndasingwa . Uwilingiyimana informed Dallaire that she was trying to gather her cabinet but many ministers were afraid to leave their families . She also reported that all of the hardline ministers had disappeared . Dallaire asked the prime minister if she could confirm that it was the president ' s plane that had crashed , and then called UNAMIR political head Jacques - Roger Booh - Booh to inform him of developments . Uwilingiyimana then called back to confirm that it was the president ' s jet and he was presumed to be on board . She also asked for UNAMIR help in regaining control of the political situation , as she was legally next in the line of succession , but some moderate ministers allied to her had already begun fleeing their homes , fearing for their safety . At 9 : 18 pm , Presidential Guards whom a UNAMIR report described as " nervous and dangerous " established a roadblock near the Hotel Méridien . Several other roadblocks had been set up prior to the attack as part of security preparations for Habyarimana ' s arrival . The patrol of UNAMIR Belgian soldiers sent to investigate the crash site was stopped at a Presidential Guards roadblock at 9 : 35 pm , disarmed and sent to the airport . Soldiers in Camp Kanombe had interpreted the bugle after the crash to mean that the RPF had attacked the military camp and ran to arm themselves . Units had gathered at assembly points by around 9 pm . One such unit was a section of the para - commando brigade CRAP , which was ordered to collect bodies from the crash site . UN Peacekeepers were prevented from accessing the crash site . Later , two French soldiers arrived at the crash and asked to be given the flight data recorder once it was recovered . The whereabouts of the flight data recorder were later unknown . French military contact Dallaire and offered to investigate the crash , which Dallaire refused immediately . A Rwandan colonel who called the army command about 40 minutes after the crash was told that there was no confirmation that the president was dead . About half an hour later , roughly 9 : 30 , the situation was still confused at army command , though it appeared clear that the presidential aircraft had exploded and that it had probably been hit by a missile . News then arrived that Major - General Déogratias Nsabimana , the army chief of staff , had been on the plane . The officers present realized that they would have to appoint a new chief of staff in order to clarify the chain of command and began a meeting to decide whom to appoint . Col . Bagosora joined them soon afterward . At about 10 pm , Ephrem Rwabalinda , the government liaison officer to UNAMIR , called Dallaire to inform him that a crisis committee was about to meet . After informing his superiors in New York of the situation , Dallaire went to attend the meeting , where he found Bagosora in charge . Long - term events . The death toll of the Rwandan Genocide is commonly estimated at 800 , 000 , though some estimates top one million . The RPF invaded , eventually capturing the country and installing a new government . About 1 . 2 million refugees fled to neighboring countries , partially due to fear of RPF retribution and partially due to a plan by the Hutu extremists to use the refugee camps as military bases for the reconquest of Rwanda . The Great Lakes refugee crisis thus became increasingly politicized and militarized until the RPF supported a rebel attack against the refugee camps across the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1996 . The rebel Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo continued their offensive , in what some call the First Congo War , until they overthrew the government of Mobutu Sese Seko . In 1998 , the new Congolese president , Laurent - Désiré Kabila , had a falling out with his foreign backers , who began another rebellion to put a more amenable government into place . The resulting Second Congo War ( 1998 – 2003 ) drew in eight nations and became the deadliest conflict since World War II , killing an estimated 3 . 8 million people . The Burundi Civil War continued after the death of Ntaryamira , both being sustained by and feeding into the instability in Rwanda and the Congo . Over 300 , 000 people would die before a government of national unity was established in 2005 . At some point following the April 6 assassination , Juvenal Habyarimana ' s remains were obtained by Zairian President Mobutu Sese Soko and stored in a private mausoleum in Gbadolite , Zaire ( now Democratic Republic of the Congo ) . Mobutu promised Habyarimana ' s family that his body would eventually be given a proper burial in Rwanda . On May 12 , 1997 , as Laurent - Désiré Kabila ' s ADFL rebels were advancing on Gbadolite , Mobutu had the remains flown by cargo plane to Kinshasa where they waited on the tarmac of N ' djili Airport for three days . On May 16 , the day before Mobutu fled Zaire , Habyarimana ' s remains were burned under the supervision of an Indian Hindu leader . Responsibility . While initial suspicion fell upon the Hutu extremists who carried out the subsequent genocide , there have been several reports since 2000 stating that the attack was carried out by the RPF on the orders of Paul Kagame , who went on to become president of Rwanda . However , all such evidence is heavily disputed and many academics , as well as the United Nations , have refrained from issuing a definitive finding . Mark Doyle , a BBC News correspondent who reported out of Kigali through the 1994 genocide , noted in 2006 that the identities of the assassins " could turn out to be one of the great mysteries of the late 20th Century . " Paul Kagame and the RPF ' s accusation of Hutu extremists shooting down the plane has received state support , and suppression of accusations of RPF involvement . France holds the RPF responsible for the assassinations . Belgium has refrained from supporting either position . A now - declassified U . S . State Department intelligence report from 7 April reports an unidentified source telling the U . S . ambassador in Rwanda " rogue Hutu elements of the military — possibly the elite presidential guard — were responsible for shooting down the plane . " This conclusion was supported by other U . S . agencies , including the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency . Philip Gourevitch , in his bestselling 1998 book on the genocide , " We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families " , framed the thinking of the time : Although Habyarimana ' s assassins have never been positively identified , suspicion has focused on the extremists in his entourage — notably the semiretired Colonel Théoneste Bagosora , an intimate of Madame Habyarimana , and a charter member of the " akazu " and its death squads , who said in January 1993 that he was preparing an apocalypse . The 1997 report of the Belgian Senate stated that there was not enough information to determine specifics about the assassination . A 1998 report by the National Assembly of France posited two probable explanations . One is that the attack was carried out by groups of Hutu extremists , distressed by the advancement of negotiations with the RPF , the political and military adversary of the current regime , while the other is that it was the responsibility of the RPF , frustrated at the lack of progress in the Arusha Accords . Among the other hypotheses that were examined is one that implicates the French military , although there is no clear motive for a French attack on the Rwandan government . The 1998 French report made no determination between the two dominant theories . A 2000 report by the Organisation of African Unity does not attempt to determine responsibility . A January 2000 article in the Canadian " National Post " reported that International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda prosecutor Louise Arbour had suppressed a report detailing accusations by three Tutsi informants that the RPF under Kagame had carried out the assassination with the help of a foreign government . The UN later clarified that the ' report ' was actually a three page memorandum by investigator Michael Hourigan of Australia , who had been unsure of the credibility of the information and simply filed it into archives . The UN then sent the memo on to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , where defense attorneys had expressed interest in using it on behalf of their clients . In 2004 , a report by French anti - terrorist magistrate Jean - Louis Bruguière , investigating the deaths of the French aircraft crew , stated that the assassination had been carried out on the orders of Paul Kagame . The report relies heavily on the testimony of Abdul Ruzibiza , a former lieutenant in the RPF , who states that he was part of a cell that carried out the assassination with shoulder - fired SA - 16 missiles . Ruzibaza later published his testimony in a press release , detailing his account and further accusing the RPF of starting the conflict , prolonging the genocide , carrying out widespread atrocities during the genocide and political repression . The former RPF officer went on to publish a 2005 book " Rwanda . L ’ histoire secrete " with his account . Bruguière reportedly claims that the CIA was involved in Habyarimana ' s assassination . Paul Rusesabagina , a Rwandan of mixed Hutu and Tutsi origin whose life - saving efforts was the basis of the 2004 film " Hotel Rwanda " , has supported the allegation that Kagame and the RPF were behind the plane downing , and wrote in November 2006 : It defies logic why the UN Security Council has never mandated an investigation of this airplane missile attack to establish who was responsible , especially since everyone agrees it was the one incident that touched off the mass killings commonly referred to as the " Rwandan genocide of 1994 " . Also in November 2006 , Bruguière issued another report accusing Kagame and the RPF of masterminding the assassination . In protest , Kagame broke diplomatic relations between France and Rwanda . Linda Melvern , author of " Conspiracy to Murder : The Rwandan Genocide " , noted the evidence the French judge had presented alleging President Kagame ' s involvement in the murder of his predecessor was very sparse , and that some of it , concerning the alleged anti - aircraft missiles used to down the presidential jet , had already been rejected by a French Parliamentary enquiry . Kagame also ordered the formation of a commission of Rwandans that was " charged with assembling proof of the involvement of France in the genocide " . The political character of that investigation was further averred when the commission issued its report solely to Kagame in November 2007 and its head , Jean de Dieu Mucyo , stated that the commission would now " wait for President Kagame to declare whether the inquiry was valid . " A 2007 article by Colette Braeckman in " Le Monde Diplomatique " strongly questions the reliability of Judge Bruguière ' s report and suggests the direct involvement of French military personnel acting for or with the Presidential Guard of the Rwanda governmental forces in the missile attack on the aircraft . In a 2007 interview with the BBC , Kagame said he would co - operate with an impartial inquiry . The BBC concluded , " Whether any judge would want to take on such a task is quite another matter . " Bruguière also issued arrest warrants for nine Kagame aides , in order to question them about the assassination . In November 2008 the German government implemented the first of these European warrants and arrested Rose Kabuye , Kagame ' s chief of protocol , upon her arrival in Frankfurt . Kabuye apparently agreed to be transferred to French custody immediately in order to respond to Bruguière ' s questions . Later scrutiny into the Brugiere report by the judge Marc Trevidic , revealed that much of it relied on testimony from RPF soldiers who later retracted their testimony . In January 2010 , the Rwandan government released the " Report of the Investigation into the Causes and Circumstances of and Responsibility for the Attack of 06 / 04 / 1994 Against The Falcon 50 Rwandan Presidential Aeroplane Registration Number 9XR - NN , " known as the Mutsinzi Report . The multivolume report implicates proponents of Hutu Power in the attack and Philip Gourevitch states , " two months ago , on the day after Rwanda ' s admission to the Commonwealth , France and Rwanda reestablished normal diplomatic relations . Before that happened , of course , the Rwandans had shared the about - to - be - released Mutsinzi report with the French . The normalization of relations amounts to France ’ s acceptance of the report ' s conclusions . " Even the location from which the missiles were fired is disputed . Eyewitnesses have variously stated that they saw the missiles launched from Gasogi Hill , Nyandungu Valley , Rusororo Hill and Masaka Hill . Some witnesses claim to have seen used shoulder - launched missile launchers on Masaka Hill . A French investigation found in January 2012 that " the missile fire which brought down the Rwandan president ’ s plane in 1994 and sparked the country ’ s genocide came from a military camp and not Tutsi rebels , " clearing Kagame . The investigation identified Kanombe barracks , as the source of the missile . The base was controlled by FAR forces , including the Presidential Guard and the para - commando battalion , and the AntiAircraft Battalion ( LAA ) were also based there . The flight path would have passed over Kanombe barracks on the way to Kigali International Airport .