May 25, 1994 marked the 49th day of the 100-day Genocide against the Tutsi, as killings orchestrated by the extremist government continued to intensify across Rwanda.
On that day, hundreds of Tutsi civilians hiding at CHUK, including patients receiving medical treatment, were hunted down and killed by Interahamwe militias. Survivors who were not targeted were later transferred to Kabgayi, while the hospital was subsequently converted into a treatment center for wounded soldiers of the former FAR army.
As massacres escalated nationwide, the then United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, publicly acknowledged for the first time that the atrocities being committed in Rwanda amounted to genocide.
The same day, the International Commission of Jurists called on the United Nations to extend the mandate of the International Criminal Tribunal established for the former Yugoslavia so it could also prosecute crimes committed in Rwanda.
Boutros-Ghali further admitted that the failure to deploy international troops to stop the killings represented a major failure of both the United Nations and the wider international community.
Meanwhile, Iqbal Riza, who was on an official mission to Rwanda, met representatives of the genocidal interim government in Gitarama in an effort to push for an end to the massacres. However, the discussions failed to halt the ongoing killings of Tutsi across the country.
