Hutu the country (see Great Lakes refugee crisis). Hutu The Hutu , also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic or Social group native to the African Great Lakes region of Africa, primarily area now under Burundi and Rwanda. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the principal population divisions alongside the Tutsi and the Twa. The Hutu is the largest of the four main population divisions in Burundi and Rwanda. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, 84% of Rwandans and 85% of Burundians are Hutu, with Tutsis
History of Rwanda dominated by the majority Hutu under President Grégoire Kayibanda. Unsettled ethnic and political tensions were worsened when Juvénal Habyarimana, who was also Hutu, seized power in 1973. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed of 10,000 Tutsi refugees from previous decades of unrest, invaded the country, starting the Rwandan Civil War. The war ground on, worsening ethnic tensions, as the Hutu feared losing their gains. The assassination of Habyarimana was the catalyst for the eruption of the 1994 genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were killed. The Tutsi RPF conquered