By: ELISABETH BECK
Staff Writer
In 1994 in Rwanda, the Tutsi ethnicity was targeted -attacked by the Hutu ethnicity- losing between 500,000 to 1 million citizens. The Hutus and Tutsi had a massive difference between the two sizes of populations – the Hutus had a population of around 85% while the Tutsi only had around 14% of the population. This resulted in the Hutus having a major upper hand over the Tutsi. Before they experienced this massive act of genocide there has been a massive feud between the Tutsi and Hutus.
A civil war broke out between the two ethnicities, and when the war ended in 1993, Hutu extremists were outraged. The Hutus went even farther, targeting even more. Eventually, this led to the start of the genocide on April 6, 1994. On April 6, 1994, the President was hit with a missile that shot at a plane that he was on. Extremists had one goal in mind and one goal only – to wipe out the entire population of the Tutsi ethnicity. The Tutsi population ran and hid in schools, churches, and government buildings – thus these were the places where they were slaughtered. In June of 1994, the genocide finally ceased with the help of the United Nation troops helping the Tutsi movement restore order.
History is tragic and something we shouldn’t shy away from. We should look at it with open hearts and learn from our ancestors. We should not stay silent when we see something – instead, speak up.