October: a month of commemoration of the genocide committed against the Hutu
October is the month of commemoration of the genocide committed against the Hutu in the Great Lakes region. This choice is not arbitrary. October marks the start of each cycle of violence: the war in Rwanda in 1990, the massacres in Burundi in 1993, the destruction of the refugee camps in Zaire in 1996. It is also in October that the United Nations recorded these crimes, in 1994 and then in 2010.
For families in Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the diaspora, these dates remain open wounds. For a long time, this mourning was silenced, sometimes forbidden. Yet international investigations have documented these crimes. Today, a judicial procedure gives them new visibility.
This article explains why October stands out as the month of commemoration of this genocide. It rests on dated facts and public sources.
October, from 1990 to 1997
Between 1990 and 1997, four Octobers punctuate the genocide committed against the Hutu. Two others, in 1994 and in 2010, mark its documentation by the United Nations.
On 1 October 1990, the offensive of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, launched from Uganda, opened the conflict from which all subsequent violence flowed, in Rwanda and then in Zaire. In the prefectures of Byumba and Ruhengeri, peasant families were driven from their hills. By early 1993, the displaced in the north numbered close to a million (Human Rights Watch, 1993).
On 21 October 1993, soldiers assassinated Melchior Ndadaye in Burundi. The country tipped into massacres on a massive scale. The army, majority Tutsi, then carried out deadly reprisals against Hutu populations (Human Rights Watch, 1995).
In Zaire, the genocide committed against the Hutu began in October 1996 with the destruction of the refugee camps in the east of the country. In South Kivu, units of the AFDL, the Rwandan Patriotic Army and the Burundian army attacked the camps of the Ruzizi plain from 20 October. On 21 October, around 370 refugees were killed at the Luberizi camp, and the following day close to 550 Rwandan Hutu refugees were massacred in the Rushima ravine (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 2010c).
In North Kivu, AFDL and RPA soldiers bombarded the Kibumba camp with heavy weapons on 25 and 26 October. They attacked Katale on 26 October, then Kahindo and Katale on 31 October, where several hundred refugees were killed (OHCHR, 2010b).
The survivors who fled west were hunted for months across Zaire, in makeshift camps, in the forest and along the rivers. This pursuit passed through Tingi-Tingi and continued as far as Mbandaka, in the Equateur province of Zaire, more than 2,000 kilometres from the Rwandan border (OHCHR, 2010a; 2010d; 2010e).
Between 23 and 28 October 1997, thousands of displaced Hutu civilians hid in a cave at Nyakimana, in north west Rwanda. According to Amnesty International, soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army attacked it with grenades and explosives, then sealed its entrance. Local sources put the number of dead between 5,000 and 8,000 (Amnesty International, 1997; Global Campaign for Rwandans' Human Rights, n.d.).
From memory to law
The United Nations were warned early, however. On 4 October 1994, the Security Council received the interim report of the Commission of Experts on Rwanda. It judged that there were serious grounds to conclude that mass murders, summary executions and crimes against humanity had been committed by Tutsi elements against the Hutu. It called for thorough investigations (United Nations Security Council, 1994).
The same month, the conclusions of UNHCR consultant Robert Gersony reached United Nations headquarters. His team visited 91 sites between August and September 1994. It estimated that the Rwandan Patriotic Army killed between 25,000 and 45,000 people from April to August 1994 (Human Rights Watch, 1999). A cable from the United Nations mission in Rwanda, dated 14 October 1994, reports that Gersony saw in it a planned and systematic genocide against the Hutu (Rever, 2018). His conclusions were then kept secret.
Another October changed everything. On 1 October 2010, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published the Mapping Project report on the DRC. It recorded 617 serious incidents committed between 1993 and 2003 (Human Rights Watch, 2010).
On the attacks against Hutu refugees, the report noted several damning elements. If proven before a competent court, they could be qualified as crimes of genocide. The report does not itself rule. It calls for a full judicial investigation (OHCHR, 2010a). Sixteen years later, that investigation has still not taken place.
This is why the DRC's action matters. On 26 June 2026, it brought a case against Rwanda at the International Court of Justice. Its application covers the period from 1996 to today. It invokes the Genocide Convention and targets, in particular, Rwandan Hutu refugees (Opinio Juris, 2026).
This procedure brings the genocide committed against the Hutu into the language of international law. Mourning Hutu victims can no longer be treated as revisionism. It is demanding what the United Nations have been asking for since 2010: that justice rule on the matter.
Remembering to build peace
Commemorating in October is not opposing one mourning to another. All the victims of the region deserve to be named. A lasting peace cannot rest on a selective memory, in which some of the dead are mourned and others are forgotten.
October belongs to the mothers who lost their children in the forests of Congo. It belongs to the families who disappeared in the cave of Nyakimana. It belongs to all those whose mourning was forbidden, and to every victim of the genocide committed against the Hutu.
In October, the memory of the genocide committed against the Hutu calls for one demand alone: that the truth be established by justice, not by silence.
Sources
Amnesty International (1997) Rwanda: civilians trapped in armed conflict. AFR 47/043/1997. Available at: amnesty.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
United Nations Security Council (1994) Interim report of the Commission of Experts established pursuant to Security Council resolution 935 (1994). S/1994/1125, 4 October. Available at: securitycouncilreport.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
Global Campaign for Rwandans' Human Rights (n.d.) October: Hutu genocide commemoration month. Available at: hutugenocide.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) (2010a) Mapping Project report, acts of violence: genocide against the Hutu. Available at: mapping-report.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
OHCHR (2010b) Mapping Project report, attacks against Hutu refugees in the camps along the Goma-Rutshuru road (North Kivu). Available at: mapping-report.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
OHCHR (2010c) Mapping Project report, attacks against Hutu refugees, Uvira territory (South Kivu). Available at: mapping-report.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
OHCHR (2010d) Mapping Project report, First Congo War: attacks against Hutu refugees, Equateur. Available at: mapping-report.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
OHCHR (2010e) Mapping Project report, First Congo War: attacks against Hutu refugees, Maniema. Available at: mapping-report.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
Human Rights Watch (1993) Beyond the rhetoric: continuing human rights abuses in Rwanda, 5(7). Available at: hrw.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
Human Rights Watch (1995) World report 1995: Burundi. Available at: hrw.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
Human Rights Watch (1999) Leave none to tell the story: genocide in Rwanda, chapter "The Rwandan Patriotic Front". Available at: hrw.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
Human Rights Watch (2010) DR Congo: Q & A on the United Nations human rights mapping report, 1 October. Available at: hrw.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
Opinio Juris (2026) A new Genocide Convention case in the ICJ: DRC v Rwanda version 3.0, 7 September. Available at: opiniojuris.org (Accessed: 4 October 2026).
Rever, J. (2018) In praise of blood: the crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Toronto: Random House Canada.