Kigali office of the University of Rwanda (UR) is in Kigali. The UR College of Science and Technology campus is in the Southern part of Kigali, at Avenue de l'Armee. (The main academic campus of University of Rwanda is in Butare, the former National University of Rwanda.) Carnegie Mellon University's The College of Engineering has an international campus located in Kigali known as Carnegie Mellon University Africa., the University of Kigali is a private higher institutions in Rwanda which started its operations in October, 2013 Other renowned universities also have their headquarters or campuses in Kigali including: Kigali Independent University and
Kigali down near Kigali Airport. This was the catalyst for the Rwandan genocide, in which 500,000–1,000,000 Tutsi and politically moderate Hutu were killed in well-planned attacks on the orders of the interim government. Opposition politicians based in Kigali were killed on the first day of the genocide, and the city then became the setting for fierce fighting between the army (mostly Hutu) and the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). On 8 April, Rwandan government forces attacked the RPF base in the parliament building from several directions, but RPF troops successfully fought back. The RPF then began an attack from the north