Only a few weeks after returning from Belgium, Rwanda’s last queen, Rosalie Gicanda, was assassinated, on April 20, in Butare, as the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi raged across the country.
Gicanda, 66, the widow of King Mutara III Rudahigwa, had travelled to Belgium for medical treatment. But in February 1994, Belgian authorities asked her to leave, even though her visa was still valid. She returned to Rwanda shortly before the genocide began.
ALSO READ: Did Belgium send Queen Gicanda to her death in Rwanda?
She was killed a day after the Tutsi prefect of Butare, Jean-Baptiste Habyarimana, was replaced by Sylvain Nsabimana, an extremist appointed by interim president Théodore Sindikubwabo to accelerate the genocide.
The order to kill the queen was issued by Capt Ildephonse Nizeyimana, an officer at the ESO military school in Butare. He sent soldiers to her home near the Ngoma commune office where they carried out the assassination.
Nizeyimana was later convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
ALSO READ: First Lady Jeannette Kagame pays tribute to late Queen Gicanda
Following her murder, Sindikubwabo and his government continued to incite violence against the Tutsi. On the same day, he visited Ndora and Shyanda in Gisagara District, calling for further killings.
Across the country, genocide against the Tutsi intensified. At Mugombwa Church in Gisagara District, thousands of the Tutsi who had taken refuge there were killed. An Italian priest, Titiano Pagliolalo, had locked them inside the church. When the attackers arrived, they used grenades to break in before setting the church on fire. About 26,700 people were killed.
In Busekanka near Lake Kivu, many Tutsi were killed while attempting to flee to Zaire – present day DR Congo. There was no formal roadblock at the site, but Interahamwe militia members would rush there whenever they spotted people fleeing.
At Nyumba Catholic Parish in Gishamvu, in Butare, between 25,000 and 30,000 Tutsi were shot to death.