At least 138 people were killed on Thursday June 10, 1999 in a suspect
bus accident on the road of Kibuye. Most of these people were family
members of hutu ethnics imprisoned by the current Rwandan Patriotic
Front(RPF)
-led government of Rwanda.
This Thursday was a visit day. These victims were bringing food, some to their parents, brothers, children, or mothers, others just to their loved ones or simply to their neighbors.
Rumors are already spreading that the bus was ambushed by the the government army, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), in order to achieve two objectives: first, to pysically eliminate more hutu ethnic group members, and second to cut down the only moral and physical support the prisoners had, and hence, starve these prisoners to death.
These rumors were aggravated by the round-up of thousands mostly hutu civilians in Kigali on Sunday June 13, 1999. These hutu are detained in the soccer stadium of Nyamirambo. This infamous soccer stadium was sadly renown in the early days of the rebellion led by RPF, currently the leader of the military regime of Rwanda. In deed, those suspected of supporting the RPF were then rounded up and held in the same soccer stadium for days before being transfered to maximum security jails.
Some diplomats in Kigali view these events as a re-edition of the 1990 events, but this time, the RPF being the executioner and the Hutu the victims. Already, thousands are being sent to maximum security prisons where they join hundreds of thousands who are held mostly for more than 4 years without any accusation.
International media, human rights organizations, and independent agencies estimate than more than 200,000 hutus are imprisoned in Rwanda. Rwandan prisons have arguably become the most crowded, most dangerous, and most inhumane prisons in the World. Hundreds of thousands of people are held in truck containers, disused factories, old bathrooms, wet or leaking dungeons, or anywhere things can be confined. Crowded cells serve as toilets, sleeping, and living rooms. Prisoners are regularly tortured. Thousands have lost limbs, developed skin diseases, or caught recurrent or terminal illnesses.