April 7, 1994 the Hutus, the dominant ethnicity of Rwanda, declared all of the Tutsi minority group traitors and encouraged citizens to kill all the Tutsi they knew. Rwanda was originally one of Belgium's colonies and when Belgium ruled they heavily favored Tutsis despite their minority status. This desparity caused ethnic tensions to arise which would later be the downfall of their country. When the plane carrying their moderate president and other diplomats was shot down, Hutu extremists immediately seized the opportunity to initiate a genocide of terrifying proportions. The death toll was around 600,000, 500,000 of which being Tutsis.
The government response after the genocide was straightforward. Along with the expected infrastructure reconstruction, they also began the process of de-ethnicization, where they pushed to eliminate the distinction in ethnicity between Rwandan citizens, with the poverty rate decreasing dramatically from post-genocide rates, from 2000-2010 alone they saw a 24% decrease in poverty. This wasn't just due to the government, or even mainly because of the government, international funding, local NGOs and campaigns made the most impact on the country, Citizens took the responsibility of rebuilding their nation into their own hands, even establishing systematic community judicial systems called Gacaca Community Courts, to take steps toward independence from the help of international organizations.
Organizations for genocide awareness
