Ryandikayo and Charles Sikubwabo, the last remaining fugitives wanted by an international court for the 1994 Rwanda genocide, have been confirmed dead, prosecutors announced Wednesday, more than 25 years after their demise.
However, over 1,000 genocide suspects sought by national authorities remain at large, according to Serge Brammertz, the chief prosecutor for the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT).
Ryandikayo and Sikubwabo were indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in November 1995 for their roles in the genocide, which resulted in the massacre of approximately 800,000 people, primarily Tutsis and moderate Hutus, by Hutu extremists.
The charges against them included genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, murder as a crime against humanity, and extermination as a crime against humanity, among other crimes committed in the Kibuye prefecture on the shores of Lake Kivu.
The IRMCT prosecutor’s office stated it “has accounted for all fugitives” indicted by the international tribunal for crimes committed during the 1994 genocide.
“Following a comprehensive investigation, the OTP was able to conclude that Sikubwabo passed away in N’djamena, Chad, in 1998 and was subsequently buried there,” it said in a statement.
Ryandikayo fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo—then Zaire—where he “passed away in 1998, most likely due to illness, sometime after arriving in Kinshasa,” the statement added.
Sikubwabo, who served as mayor of Gishyita in Kibuye, was accused of leading attacks and participating in massacres that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Tutsis.
After the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front rebel militia took control of Kigali in July 1994, Sikubwabo fled to the DRC and traveled through various African nations before arriving in Chad in 1997, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Ryandikayo, a local businessman, was also accused of instigating massacres against Tutsis, with thousands killed in Gishyita and nearby Bisesero. After his escape, he traveled to Kinshasa to join an ethnic Hutu militia, the prosecutor’s office reported.
“Even as we mark the conclusion of the search for the last ICTR fugitives, it is critical to remind ourselves that there are still more than 1,000 fugitive genocidaires who are sought by national authorities,” Brammertz said.
Naphtali Ahishakiye, executive secretary of the genocide survivors’ group Ibuka, told AFP that many perpetrators remained at large and urged governments worldwide to find “genocide fugitives living on their soil and bring them to justice.”
The IRMCT was established under a 2010 UN resolution to complete the work of both the international Rwanda court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
