The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis by Hutu militia. Over the course of approximately 100 days, from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana on April 6th through to mid July, at least 500,000 people were killed. Most estimates indicate a death toll between 800,000 and 1,000,000.

The genocide was perpetrated by two Hutu militias, the Interahamwe, the militant wing of the MRND, and the Impuzamugambi, the militant wing of the CDR on one side, and the Tutsi rebel group, the RPF, on the other side. The Rwandan Civil War, fought between the Hutu regime with support from Francophone nations of Africa, as well as France itself, and rebel Tutsi exiles with support from Uganda, after their invasion in 1990, was its catalyst. With outside pressure on the Habyarimana's government, in 1993, the Hutu regime and Tutsi rebels agreed to a cease-fire, and the preliminary implementation of the Arusha Accords. The diplomatic efforts to end the conflict were at first thought to be successful, yet even with the RPF, the political wing of the RPA, and the government in talks, elites among the Akazu were against any agreement for cooperation between the regime and the rebels to solve the ethnic and economic problems of Rwanda and progress towards a stable nationhood.

A resurgence in the civil war compounded the genocide. The situation proved too difficult and volatile for the United Nations to handle. The invaders successfully brought the country under their sway, although their efforts towards a conclusion to the conflict were brought to a contravention after the French, under Operation Turquoise, established and maintained a "safe zone" for Hutu refugees to flee to in the southwest. Eventually, after the UN Mandate of the French mission was at an end, millions of refugees left Rwanda, mainly headed to Zaire. The presence of Hutu refugees (see Great Lakes refugee crisis) on the border with Rwanda was the cause for the First and Second Congo Wars with clashes between these groups and the Rwandan government continuing.

The UN's mandate forbids intervening in the internal politics of any country unless the crime of genocide is being committed. The United States government did not recognize the genocide. The governments of Belgium,the U.S. are faulted for their inactions and their lack of support to the UNAMIR. France, in particular, is blamed in aiding the Hutu regime to flee by creating what is known as Operation Turquoise. Canada, Ghana, and the Netherlands provided consistent support for the UN mission under the command of Roméo Dallaire although it was left without an appropriate mandate for the capacity to intervene from the U.N. Security Council. Despite emphatic demands from UNAMIR's commanders in Rwanda, before and throughout the genocide, its requests for authorization to end it were refused and its intervention-capacity was even reduced.