One of last Rwanda genocide fugitives ‘died in 2002’

Pheneas Munyarugarama, one of the last five fugitives wanted for his role in Rwanda’s genocide in 1994, died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002, UN prosecutors said Wednesday.

Munyarugarama, a local army commander, “died of natural causes” and was buried in Kankwala, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) in The Hague.

The announcement comes less than a week after the tribunal announced the death of Protais Mpiranya, the most wanted suspect in the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus over a 100-day period.

“For the victims and survivors of Munyarugarama’s crimes in the Bugesera region, we hope this result brings some closure,” the tribunal’s chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz said in a statement.

A former lieutenant-colonel in the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR), Munyarugarama, who was born in 1948, was charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with eight counts including genocide and crimes gainst humanity.

“Munyarugarama was alleged to be responsible for mass killings, attacks, and sexual violence against Tutsi civilians at various locations in the Bugesera region, including the attacks on Tutsi refugees at the Ntarama and Nyamata Catholic Churches,” the MICT said.

The tribunal said that after a “comprehensive and challenging investigation”, prosecutors established that Munyarugarama “died from natural causes on or about 28 February 2002 in Kankwala… where he was also buried.”

The tribunal said only four fugitives now remained on its books: Fulgence Kayishema, Charles Sikubwabo, Charles Ryandikayo and Aloys Ndimbati.

Top fugitive and alleged genocide financier Felicien Kabuga was arrested near Paris in 2020.

The Libya and Belgian-trained Munyarugarama fled to former Zaire shortly after the 1994 genocide where he joined remnants of the Rwandan armed forces, according to a summary of his movements, made by the tribunal’s prosecutors.

In 1998, he helped recruit ex-Rwandan soldiers for the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) rebel group, largely basing himself in the DRC’s eastern Kivu provinces as a senior FDLR leader.

In late 2001, the Hutu-supremacist movement was to gather in Kinshasa for talks on how to integrate itself into one structure, prosecutors said.

Munyarugarama, escorted by two relatives and FDLR escorts, “made a lengthy journey on foot… heading for Kinshasa”, prosecutors said.

“The journey lasted several months and involved crossing arduous terrain including jungle, swamps and several difficult river crossings.”

Munyarugarama “had difficulty with the river crossings… and nearly drowned, and afterward started reporting feeling unwell to his traveling companions,” prosecutors said.

Several days after reaching the small village of Kankwala in North Katanga along the way, “Munyarugarama fell ill” and died in 2002.

“Although the exact cause of death is unknown, due to a lack of trained medical staff and facilities, it was from natural causes,” prosecutors said, adding he was buried there the next day “in a coffin in an unmarked grave”.

Prosecutors also announced last week that leading fugitive Mpiranya died of tuberculosis in Zimbabwe in 2006.

Mpiranya is accused of being among those who ordered the assassination of then-prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, ten Belgian soldiers who were protecting her, and several other leading politicians and their families on April 7, 1994, in the early hours of the genocide.