UN prosecutors investigating the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda announced on Thursday that Fulgence Kayishema, one of the last four fugitives wanted for their role in the case, was arrested on Wednesday in Paarl, South Africa, after being on the run since 2001.
The United Nations tribunal, which is responsible for completing the work of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), said in a statement that one of the world’s most wanted fugitive genocidaires had been arrested in an arrangement with South African authorities.
Mr. Kayishema is accused of murdering, with other individuals, more than 2,000 men, women, elderly people, and children who took refuge in the Nyange church in the commune of Kivumu on 15th April 1994.
In this regard, the court stated that the fugitive “directly participated in the planning and execution of this massacre”, “in particular by procuring and distributing petrol to set fire to the church with the refugees inside”, adding that the fugitive “used a bulldozer to make the church collapse, burying and killing the refugees inside”.
Thus, the court added that Mr. Kayishema, charged with crimes against humanity, used numerous pseudonyms and false documents to conceal his identity and presence.
The ICTR has convicted 62 people. Others, such as Augustin Bizimana, one of the main architects of the massacre, died without having faced international justice.