The systematic attacks in general, and the killings and massacres perpetrated against members of the Hutu ethnic group in Rwanda and in DRC, resulted in a very large number of victims, probably tens of thousands of members of the Hutu ethnic group, all nationalities combined. In the vast majority of cases reported, it was not a question of people killed unintentionally in the course of combat, but people targeted primarily by RPF and its ally AFDL and executed in their hundreds, often with edged weapons. (OHCHR, 2010. Report of the Mapping Exercise Documenting the Most Serious Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Committed Within the Territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Between March 1993 and June 2003, Geneva: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (web version)).
On the hills of Rwanda, the RPF massacred Hutus in batches of tens, hundreds and sometimes thousands, buried them in mass graves, dug up these graves and burned the bodies to disappear all evidence. The crimes committed by the RPF are so horrible that the perpetrators only want to forget them: “Injecting syringes of kerosene into ears. Smothering people with plastic bags. Choking with ropes and cords. Impaling women and girls with tools. Using agafuni—the RPF’s war hammer—to crack skulls and spill brain matter out like porridge. Burying people alive. Shooting women and children in the back. Forcing victims to dig their own graves. The methods are intimate, sadistic.” (Judi Rever 2018. In Praise of Blood, The Crimes of the Rwanda Patriotic Front. Toronto: Random House Canada)
[…] RPF soldiers unleashed machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades on Kibeho, a displacement camp housing hundreds of thousands of Hutus, in April 1995—a gruesome attack in which 4,000 Hutus are said to have been killed in front of UN peacekeepers and human rights monitors. (Rever, 2018)
The UN OHCHR Mapping Exercise report on this crime concluded that “The majority of the victims were children, women, elderly people and the sick, who posed no threat to the attacking forces. Numerous serious attacks on the physical or psychological integrity of members of the group were also committed, with a very high number of Hutus shot, raped, burnt or beaten. Very large numbers of victims were forced to flee and travel long distances to escape their pursuers, who were trying to kill them”.
The hunt lasted for months, resulting in the deaths of an unknown number of people subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading living conditions, without access to food or medication. On several occasions, the humanitarian aid intended for them was deliberately blocked, in particular in Orientale Province, depriving them of assistance essential to their survival (OHCHR, 2010. Report of the Mapping Exercise Documenting the Most Serious Violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Committed Within the Territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Between March 1993 and June 2003, Geneva: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (web version))
Therefore, the attacks and killings on Hutu people by RPA and AFDL correspond to the following prohibited acts under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide : (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.