# Killing of Queen Rosalie Gicanda (1994)

URL: https://allhistories.com/rwanda/timeline/1994-killing-of-queen-rosalie-gicanda
Location: Huye (Butare), Rwanda
Themes: main-event

Rosalie Gicanda, born in 1928, married King Mutara III Rudahigwa in 1942 and was queen of Rwanda until his death in 1959. After the abolition of the monarchy she lived quietly in Butare, near the old royal capital of Nyanza, and remained a respected symbol of the pre-colonial kingdom and of Tutsi heritage. On 20 April 1994, the day after Sindikubwabo's speech launched the killings in Butare, soldiers came to her house, took the 66-year-old former queen and several members of her household behind the national museum, and shot them. Her killing was one of the first acts of the genocide in the city and carried a strong symbolic message, eliminating the most prominent living link to the Rwandan monarchy, which extremist propaganda associated with Tutsi domination. Captain Ildephonse Nizeyimana of the École des Sous-Officiers in Butare was convicted by the ICTR in 2012 of ordering her murder, among other crimes, and sentenced to life imprisonment, later reduced on appeal to 35 years. Her murder is recalled each year during Kwibuka, the national commemoration of the genocide, as a symbol of the attempt to erase Rwanda's past. At this point in the timeline (20 April 1994), the Interim President of Rwanda was Théodore Sindikubwabo (8 April 1994 – 19 July 1994). Government: the Prime Minister of Rwanda was Jean Kambanda (9 April 1994 – 19 July 1994).

## Why it matters
The murder of the former queen was a deliberate attack on a living symbol of Rwanda's monarchy and Tutsi history.

Ruler at the Time: [Théodore Sindikubwabo](https://allhistories.com/rwanda/rulers/theodore-sindikubwabo)

Prime Minister of Rwanda: Jean Kambanda (MDR)

## Sources
- [Wikipedia — Rosalie Gicanda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalie_Gicanda)
- [UN International Residual Mechanism — ICTR](https://unictr.irmct.org/)
- [The New Times (Rwanda)](https://www.newtimes.co.rw/)
- [Wikipedia — Civil War And Genocide (period overview)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_genocide)