On April 6, 1994, an aircraft carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down by a surface-to-air missile as it was about to land in Kigali airport. Everyone aboard the plane was killed: Habyarimana; president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira; and a three-man French crew. While it remains unclear who fired the missile, the event is viewed as having ignited the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi Genocide.Live Wesige remembers hearing the news about the president’s death and describes the violence that ensued in his neighborhood the next day, April 7, 1994.

One of Rwanda’s most prolific ambassadors of tolerance and action against genocide is Yannick Tona, who, at 24 years old, has already emerged as a powerful speaker and future leader.

April 2, 2014:  Yannick Tona, currently a student at Texas Christian University, speaks to students in the USC Shoah Foundation Student Association of his experiences during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, which took the lives of most of his family, and of how he connected these horrors from his past to his humanitarian efforts of today. For more information on Yannick: http://www.yannicktona.com/

USC Shoah Foundation’s mission to Rwanda ends Tuesday after the delegation attended the Kwibuka20 commemoration ceremony and delved into USC Shoah Foundation’s work in education and archive-building.