On April 6, 1994, unidentified attackers shot down a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana as it was about to land at Kigali airport. President Habyarimana, his Burundian counterpart and eight other passengers died in the crash. The next day, organized killings began. Massacres continued over the course of three months, and at least 800,000 Rwandans lost their lives.

After the assassination of the president, Hutu extremists attacked the Tutsi minority and Hutus who stood in their way. The murderers were well-prepared and targeted human rights activists, journalists and politicians. One of the first victims on April 7 was Prime Minister Agathe Uwiringiymana.

In January 1994, Romeo Dallaire, commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), already wanted to act on information he had received about an "anti-Tutsi extermination" plot. But the warning he sent to the UN on January 11, later known as the "genocide fax", went unheard. And so did his desperate appeals after the genocide began, which were all rejected.

The Mille Collines radio station (RTLM) and Kangura, a weekly magazine, stoked ethnic hatred. In 1990 Kangura published the racist "Hutu Ten Commandments." Mille Collines radio, which was popular for its pop music and sports programs, fuelled the genocide by urging Hutu civilians to hunt down and kill Tutsis. Director Milo Rau devoted his film "Hate Radio" to these appalling broadcasts (photo).

In Kigali, Paul Rusesabagina hid over 1,000 people in the Hotel Des Mille Collines. Rusesabagina had taken over the position of the hotel's Belgian manager, who left the country. With a great deal of alcohol and money, he managed to prevent Hutu militias from killing the refugees. In many other places where people sought refuge, they were not able to escape the slaughter.

During the Rwandan genocide, churches were no longer sanctuaries. About 4,000 men, women and children were murdered with axes, knives and machetes in the church of Ntarama near Kigali. Today the church is one of the country's many genocide memorials. Rows of skulls, human bones as well as bullet marks in the walls are a reminder of what happened there 20 years ago.

The French government maintained close ties to the Hutu regime. When the French army intervened in June, it enabled soldiers and militiamen responsible for the genocide to flee to Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and take their weapons with them. They still pose a threat to Rwanda today.

During the genocide, millions of Rwandan Tutsis and Hutus fled to Tanzania, Zaire and Uganda. Two million of them went to Zaire alone. They included former members of the army and perpetrators of the genocide, who soon founded the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a militia that is still terrorizing the population in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo today.

On July 4, 1994, rebels from the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) patrolled the area around the Church of the Holy Family in Kigali. By that time they had liberated most of the country and routed the perpetrators of the genocide. However, human rights activists also accused the rebels of committing crimes, for which no one has been held accountable to this day.

On July 18, 1994, the RPF's leader, Major General Paul Kagame, declared that the war against the government troops was over. The rebels were in control of the capital and other important towns. Initially, they installed a provisional government. Paul Kagame eventually became Rwanda's president in the year 2000.

The Rwandan genocide went on for almost three months. The victims were often slaughtered with machetes. Neighbors killed neighbors. Not even babies and elderly people were spared, and the streets were strewn with corpses and body parts. Not only the physical scars on the bodies of the survivors remind Rwandans of the genocide. There is also a deep trauma that's still palpable today.