Africa-Press – Rwanda. In April 1994, when the machine of the Genocide against the Tutsi was up and running, the killers had no mercy for anyone. As indicated by the meaning of genocide, no one was to be spared even if they were sick, elderly, heavily pregnant or unborn, ordinary or royalty.
That is what happened on April 20, when the massacres had started in the Butare Prefecture, where Rwanda’s last Queen, Rosalie Gicanda, lived.
The widow of King Mutara III Rudahigwa was 66 when killers ordered by Capt Ildephonse Nizeyimana, a commander in then Rwandan army, came to her home in Butare, where she lived with her elderly mother, took her away with six children. Her mother died three days later due to lack of medication.
On Monday, April 20, 2026, Gicanda’s family, friends and officials as a well as ordinary citizens gathered in Nyanza District to commemorate her.
Gicanda, who is laid to rest at Mwima Mausoleum alongside King Rudahigwa, is remembered for her generosity and humility, as recalled by Martin Mudenderi, a Catholic priest, who knew her for over three decades.
“Rosalie Gicanda was a queen who knew how to correct people humbly and gave them good advice,” Mudenderi recalled during the 30th commemoration of the late queen at the Royal Palace in Nyanza in April 2024.
“She was a Queen who was characterised by uprightness, bravery, and humility.”
Decades of humiliation and Belgium’s role in it
But Gicanda’s tragedy did not start in April 1994. She had had endured decades of humiliation at the hands of the First and Second Republics under Gregoire Kayibanda and Juvenal Habyarimana.
While receiving medical treatment in the Belgian city of Nivelle in February 1994, Gicanda was asked to leave Belgium even as her visa was still valid.
“Before the Genocide began, Queen Rosalie Gicanda was in Belgium for medical treatment. Her visa was still valid and Belgium had sufficient information about the preparation of the Genocide,” Jean-Damascène Bizimana, the Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, said at the commemoration in 2024.
“The mayor of Nivelle wrote to Gicanda on February 3, 1994, informing her that, based on the decision of the Belgian Minister of Defence, she was instructed, first, to leave the Belgian territory not later than February 12, 1994,” Bizimana said, quoting from a copy of the letter Gicanda received.
Second, the minister said, Gicanda was instructed not to go to Luxembourg or to the Netherlands. Third, the mayor informed Gicanda that she would be prosecuted if she did not obey the decision.
Moreover, the Queen was threatened with deportation, which would be preceded by detention had all these orders not obeyed.
Though still weak, Gicanda was left with no other option but a flight back to Rwanda, where discrimination against the Tutsi and not least against royalty had been piling up since 1959, when the monarchy was abolished and followed by widespread pogroms that forced hundreds of thousands into exile.
Deadline to leave Belgium
The letter asked Gicanda to leave Belgian territory by April 12.
The Queen’s doctor intervened and informed the Nivelle city mayor that Gicanda was on strong medication and she would be seriously affected if she withdrew from it suddenly.
The city authorities replied that Gicanda would be allowed to stay a little longer but not later than March 1994. The doctor asked for a written confirmation of the extension, but was never given it.
When February 12 approached, Queen Gicanda said that she would leave Belgium as she had agreed to do.
“That is the wish of God. I will go back home to see my mother,” she told her carers, adding that she did not wish to put them in trouble.
Bizimana said: “It is obvious that Belgium has a role in her murder, based on the undisputed evidence of the preparation of the Genocide that was available to them.”
The Minister noted that a 1997 assessment by the Belgian Senate of the role of Belgium in the Genocide against the Tutsi, showed that between January 19 and March 11, 1994, a Belgian lieutenant in the UN forces in Rwanda wrote 29 letters documenting the Rwandan government’s plan for genocide.
“The Belgian Senate also showed that on January 15, 1994, the Belgian Ambassador Johan Swinnen, who was in Rwanda, sent a telegram to the Minister of Foreign Affairs informing him about the preparation for genocide,” Bizimana noted.
The Senate also found that a Belgian intelligence officer compiled a 13-page report documenting the genocidal plan and submitted it to various leaders, including the King of Belgium, on February 2, 1994.
The next day, on February 3, Bizimana noted, Gicanda received the letter giving her the limited time period to return to Rwanda.
She was killed along the children who stayed with her. In 2012, Capt Nizeyimana, who ordered her murder, was convicted of genocide crimes and sentenced to 35 years in prison by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
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