1994 — The Plane Crash That Ignited a Genocide

On the evening of April 6, 1994, the presidential jet carrying Rwanda's Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi's Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it approached Kigali, killing all twelve aboard. Within hours, roadblocks went up across Rwanda, and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi began. Who fired the missiles that brought down the plane has never been settled.

In about a hundred days, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were murdered. The speed of the killing, following so swiftly on a single night's crash, is what still stuns. A plane fell from the sky, and a country descended into catastrophe.