14 of 14 events · 1961 – 2025
Country in East Africa
25 September 1961
A referendum on the monarchy was held in Rwanda on 25 September 1961, concurrent with parliamentary elections. The referendum asked two questions: whether the monarchy should be retained after independence the following year, and whether the incumbent, Kigeli V, should remain King.
21 December 1963 – 27 December 1963
The Bugesera invasion (French: Invasion de Bugesera), also known as the Bloody Christmas (French: Noël Rouge), was a military attack which was conducted against Rwanda by rebels called Inyenzi who aimed to overthrow the government in December 1963. The Inyenzi were a collection of ethnically Tutsi exiles who were affiliated with the Rwandan political party Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR), which had supported Rwanda's deposed Tutsi monarchy.
5 July 1973
The 1973 Rwandan coup d'état, also known as the Coup d'état of 5 July (French: Coup d'état du 5 Juillet), was a military coup staged by Juvénal Habyarimana against incumbent president Grégoire Kayibanda in the Republic of Rwanda. The coup took place on 5 July 1973 and was considered by many as a betrayal.
1 October 1990 – 4 August 1993
The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces, representing the incumbent Third Rwandese Republic, and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1 October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population.
1994
The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of approximately 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were systematically killed by Hutu militias.
15 April 1994 – 16 April 1994
The Nyarubuye massacre was the killing of an estimated 20,000 civilians on April 15, 1994 at the Nyarubuye Roman Catholic Church in Kibungo Province, 140 km (87 mi) east of the Rwandan capital Kigali. The victims were Tutsis.
24 October 1996 – 16 May 1997
The First Congo War, also known as Africa's First World War, was a civil and international military conflict that lasted from 24 October 1996 to 16 May 1997, primarily taking place in Zaire (which was renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the conflict). The war resulted in the overthrow of Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko, who was replaced by rebel leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila.
2 August 1998 – 30 June 2003
The Second Congo War, also known as Africa's World War or the Great War of Africa, was a major conflict that began on 2 August 1998 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), just over a year after the First Congo War. The war initially erupted when Congolese president Laurent-Désiré Kabila turned against his former allies from Rwanda and Uganda, who had helped him seize power.
1999
The Second Republic of the Congo Civil War, also known as the Second Brazzaville-Congolese Civil War, was the second of two ethnopolitical civil conflicts in the Republic of the Congo which lasted from 5 June 1997 to 29 December 1999. The war served as the continuation of the civil war of 1993–1994 and involved militias representing three political candidates.
1 December 2019
The global COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It spread to other parts of Asia and then worldwide in early 2020.
27 March 2022
A conflict began between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda in 2022 after Rwandan forces intervened in the DRC to provide military support to the March 23 Movement (M23) rebel group, including fighting alongside them against the Congolese military (FARDC) and pro-government militias. A peace agreement between Rwanda and the DRC was signed on 27 June 2025, though fighting has continued and Rwandan troops remain in the DRC. Since the Second Congo War the eastern provinces of the DRC have been the site of an ongoing insurgency by various rebel groups, most notably the March…
5 February 2023
From February to late-December 2023, floods killed over 2,600 people in 15 countries across Africa.
5 February 2025
The 2025 Bukavu offensive was a military operation conducted by M23 rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), centered around their advance toward Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu. This military campaign began in February 2025, following the group's successful capture of Goma in the neighboring North Kivu province, and concluded with the M23 rebels’ successful capture of Bukavu just over a week later.
27 June 2025
The Democratic Republic of the Congo–Rwanda peace agreement, officially the Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity, is a peace treaty intended to end the conflict between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, signed on June 27, 2025, in Washington, D.C., United States. The main points of the agreement call for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from the eastern DRC and for the Congolese government to end its support for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia.