New census to establish those killed in early ‘90s

The government has announced that it is to conduct a door-to-door census throughout the country in an attempt to establish how many people were killed in ethnic and political conflict in Rwanda in the early 1990s, and in the 1994 genocide which followed. The census information would be useful to establish the correct number of victims whose families might be considered for compensation, the BBC reported. Though the government has insisted the exercise is an administrative matter, there are fears in Rwanda that it could heighten existing fears between the two Hutus and the Tutsis. It has never been clearly established how many people were killed in the Rwandan violence from October 1990 - when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by the current President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, began its war against the government of the-then president Juvenal Habyarimana - and throughout 1994, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to one million people, the BBC stated.