Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira
On the evening of 6 April 1994, the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutu, was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their jet prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda. The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide, one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
![]() A Dassault Falcon 50 similar to the one involved in the assassination | |
Shootdown | |
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Date | April 6, 1994 |
Summary | Shot down by surface-to-air missiles |
Site | Presidential Palace gardens, Kigali, Rwanda 1.9680°S 30.1394°E |
Aircraft | |
Aircraft type | Dassault Falcon 50 |
Registration | 9XR-NN |
Flight origin | Dar es Salaam International Airport, Tanzania |
Stopover | Kigali International Airport, Rwanda |
Destination | Bujumbura International Airport, Burundi |
Occupants | 12 |
Passengers | 9 |
Crew | 3 |
Fatalities | 12 |
Survivors | 0 |
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Part of a series on the |
Rwandan genocide |
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Responsibility for the attack is disputed, with most theories proposing as suspects either the Tutsi rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) or government-aligned Hutu Power followers opposed to negotiation with the RPF.[1]