When the militia came, I showed my ID and one of the killers said,

get ready to kill.

And all of them raised their knives on the top of my head.

So they're standing around you?

Yes, around me. They surrounded me now.

Your friends are still alive?

My friends are there. They are like frozen there.

They are just quiet because this is a death.

I'm Dean Cullinay, and you're listening to Why They Did That,

a show that explores the motivations of biblical characters

and how their choices can guide yours.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the country of Rwanda was mostly populated by the Hutu ethnic group, who were traditionally crop growers. Now over time, Rwanda attracted a second

ethnic group, herdsmen known as Tutsis.

The Tutsis became landowners and the Hutus, laborers.

Naturally, this division of labor meant that the Hutus outnumbered the Tutsis.

But it wasn't until the 1950s when the European colonists arrived that a divide came between

the people.

The Europeans favored the Tutsis for their taller and more aristocratic look.

And as such, this group was to be both privileged and educated at the expense of the Hutus, leading to great tension

between the two groups of people.

In 1994, a plane carrying the Rwandan president, a Hutu, was shot down.

Immediately after that, violence ensued.

...