On April 6, 1994, the airplane carrying Juvénal Habyarimana, the President of Rwanda, and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Hutu President of Burundi, was shot down as it prepared to land at Kigali.

On April 6, 1994, he was killed when his airplane, also carrying the President of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down close to Kigali International Airport.

Cyprien Ntaryamira ( 6 March 1955 – 6 April 1994 ), was President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his death when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994.

Ntaryamira was born in the Mageyo zone's commune of Mubimbi, Bujumbura Rural Province, in what was then the Belgian-dominated United Nations Trust Territory of Burundi.

The respite was brief, as the plane carrying Ntaryamira and Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, a fellow Hutu, was shot down by unknown assailants while landing at the Rwandan capital of Kigali killing both.

On 6 April 1994, a plane carrying both the Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down by a surface-to-air missile as it approached the airport at Kanombe.

His controversial report into the April 1994 assassination of then-Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi, was made public on 17 November 2006.

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying President Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi was shot down near Kigali.

The cease-fire ended on 6 April 1994 when Habyarimana's plane was shot down near Kigali Airport, killing the President and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of Burundi.

On April 6, 1994, the airplane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Hutu president of Burundi, was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, killing everyone on board.

He came into office when the previous president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was killed in a plane crash ( an assassination in which the Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana was also killed ).

Former President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira was born here.

On April 6, 1994 the airplane of Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira ( also a Hutu ) was shot down as it flew towards the Kigali airport.

In 1994, Ndadaye ’ s successor Cyprien Ntaryamira was assassinated in the same plane crash with Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana.

This act marked the beginning of the Rwandan Genocide, while in Burundi, the death of Ntaryamira exacerbated the violence and unrest, although there was no general massacre.

The assassination of presidents Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira in the evening of April 6, 1994 was the proximate trigger for the Rwandan Genocide, which resulted in the murder of approximately 800, 000 Tutsi and a smaller number of moderate Hutu.

Also on board was Cyprien Ntaryamira, the president of Burundi, and Deogratias Nsabimana, the chief of staff of the army.

After the assassination of Ntaryamira the Hutu presidency and Tutsi military operated under a power-sharing political system until 1996, when Tutsi Pierre Buyoya replaced the Hutu president in a coup.

Ntaryamira eventually received a degree in agriculture from the National University of Rwanda in Butare in 1982.

Over the course of approximately 100 days ( from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6 through mid-July ) over 500, 000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights Watch estimate.

The Rwandan Genocide in 1994, sparked by the killing of Ndadaye ’ s successor Cyprien Ntaryamira, further aggravated the conflict in Burundi by sparking additional massacres of Tutsis.

* 1994 – The Rwandan Genocide begins when the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira is shot down.

Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of Burundi, the Chief of Staff of the Rwandan military, and numerous others also died in the attack.

New president, Melchior Ndadaye, appointed Ntaryamira Minister of Agriculture.

* April 6 – A surface-to-air missile shoots down the presidential jet of Rwanda, a Dassault Falcon 50, as it prepares to land at Kigali International Airport at Kigali, Rwanda, killing all 12 aboard, including President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana and President of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira.

Following an investigation of the plane crash of April 6, 1994 that killed both the Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and precipitated the genocide, and in which three French crew had also died, the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière indicted eight associates of Rwandan president Paul Kagame on November 17, 2006.

On 6 April 1994 Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira were assassinated, sparking the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

The current President of Burundi is Pierre Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader of the Hutu National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy who was elected unopposed as the new President of Burundi by the parliament on 19 August 2005.

Burundi and Rwanda dispute sections of border on the Akanyaru / Kanyaru and the Kagera / Nyabarongo rivers, which have changed course since the 1960s, when the boundary was delimited ; cross-border conflicts among Tutsi, Hutu, other ethnic groups, associated political rebels, armed gangs, and various government forces persist in the Great Lakes region.

The genocidal Hutu government was francophone whereas the rebel RPF was invading from anglophone Uganda.

While the Rwandan Civil War was a complex sequence of violent episodes which included killers and victims on all sides, most historians agree with RPF's assertions that the 1994 genocide was a deliberate, methodical Hutu campaign to completely exterminate the Tutsis, and that plans for the genocide were well known in advance by European, American, and UN officials.

Burundi and Rwanda dispute sections of border on the Akanyaru / Kanyaru and the Kagera / Nyabarongo rivers, which have changed course since the 1960s, when the boundary was delimited ; cross-border conflicts among Tutsi, Hutu, other ethnic groups, associated political rebels, armed gangs, and various government forces persist in the Great Lakes region.

Proponents of this account point to Rwanda as an example since the Tutsi / Hutu distinction was codified by the Belgian colonial power in the 1930s on the basis of cattle ownership, physical measurements and church records.

The distinction between the three ethnic groups was somewhat fluid, in that Tutsis who lost their cattle due to a disease epidemic, such as rinderpest, sometimes would be considered Hutu.

The Germans believed the Tutsi ruling class was a superior racial type who, because of their apparent " Hamitic " origins on the Horn of Africa, were more " European " than the Hutu.

Each citizen was issued a racial identification card, which defined one as legally Hutu or Tutsi.

Hutu militants used the term inyenzi ( cockroaches ) as a pejorative to describe Tutsi rebels for what was perceived as infiltrating the country.

After the assassination of Rwagasore, his UPRONA party was split into Tutsi and Hutu factions.

A Tutsi Prime Minister was chosen by the monarch, but, a year later in 1963, the monarch was forced to appoint a Hutu prime minister, Pierre Ngendandumwe, in an effort to satisfy growing Hutu unrest.

He was immediately assassinated by a Tutsi extremist and he was succeeded by another Hutu, Joseph Bamina.

This led to a Hutu coup from which the Mwami fled the country and Biha was shot ( but not killed ).

Then, a localized Hutu uprising in 1972 was fiercely answered by the Tutsi-dominated Burundi army in the largest Burundi genocide of Hutus, with a death toll nearing 200, 000.

The situation worsened when the first elected Burundian president, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was assassinated by the Burundian Tutsi-dominated army in October 1993.

Its leader Paul Kagame directed RPF forces in neighboring countries such as Uganda and Tanzania to invade the country, but here, Paul Kagame did not direct RPF Forces from neighbouring countries because RPF was already in Rwanda for three years and half battling the Hutu forces and Interahamwe militias who were committing the massacres.

In Rwanda, the political power was transferred from the minority Tutsi to the majority Hutu.