Hotel Rwanda masses of refugees and militia to reach safety behind Tutsi rebel lines. The film is set in 1994 during the Rwandan Genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 people, mainly Tutsi, were killed by Hutu extremists. During that year, Rwanda's population of seven million was composed of two major groups: Hutu (approximately 85%), and Tutsi (14%). In the early 1990s, Hutu extremists within Rwanda's political elite blamed the entire Tutsi minority population for the country's economic and political problems. Tutsi civilians were also accused of supporting a Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front. On 6 April 1994, a plane carrying
Georges Rutaganda Georges Rutaganda Georges Rutaganda (November 27, 1958 – October 11, 2010) was the second vice-president of the Rwandan Hutu militia "Interahamwe". Rutaganda was partly responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Prosecutor James Stewart stated that "Without Georges Rutaganda, the Rwandan genocide would not have functioned the way it did." He was on radio RTLM (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines) in Kigali in 1994, encouraging Interahamwe Militia to exterminate all Tutsis. It was alleged that Rutaganda captured, raped, and tortured Tutsi women in the Interahamwe Hideouts in Kigali. Other accounts state that Rutaganda captured Tutsi prostitutes believing them to