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France drops probe into troops' role in Rwandan genocide.

September 8, 2022

Investigating magistrates found no evidence that French troops were complicit in crimes against humanity during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

https://p.dw.com/p/4GY8m
The skulls and bones of some of those who were slaughtered as they sought refuge inside the church are laid out as a memorial to the thousands who were killed in and around the Catholic church during the 1994 genocide in Ntarama, Rwanda
Around 800,000 people were killed in a matter of months in Rwanda, many of them hastily buried in mass gravesImage: Ben Curtis/AP/picture alliance

French magistrates dropped a case against French peacekeepers accused of being complicit in a massacre during Rwanda's genocide.

They found nothing that would point to the "direct participation of French military forces in abuses committed in refugee camps, nor any complicity in helping or assisting genocide forces," the French Public Prosecutor's office said in a statement.

France deployed thousands of troops in Rwanda in 1994 when ethnic Hutu extremists targeted members of the minority Tutsi community and slaughtered about 800,000 people in just 100 days.

French peacekeepers in Rwanda in 1994 during the genocide
Ethnic Hutus welcoming a French marines detachment as they drive through a refugee camp during the 1994 genocideImage: dpa/picture alliance

France's role in the genocide

Survivors accused French troops of deliberately abandoning them to Hutu extremists in the hills of Bisesero in western Rwanda.

Prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into possible complicity in crimes against humanity in December 2005

However, the magistrates overseeing the case have opted against proceeding with a trial for the soldiers.

Last year during a visit to Rwanda, French President Emmanuel Macron admitted French responsibility for the genocide.

Macron said that France did not listen to those who warned it about the impending massacre in Rwanda and stood de facto by a genocidal regime.

However, France "was not an accomplice" to the genocide, Macron added.

His statements echoed the findings of an independent commission of historians, which absolved France of direct complicity but blamed it for failing to foresee the slaughter.

lo/rc (AFP, Reuters)