Mobutu Sese Seko reportedly proposed the deployment of United Nations troops to secure a 20-kilometre perimeter around Kigali’s Kanombe Airport during the final phase of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
At the time, the airport had already come under the control of the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA-Inkotanyi), alongside the nearby Kanombe military camp, following advances by the liberation forces.
Mobutu, then President of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), suggested that RPA forces withdraw from the area to allow UN peacekeepers to take over control of the airport and its surrounding security zone.
The proposal came as RPA forces continued their military advance across the country, capturing key positions while simultaneously rescuing civilians trapped in the genocide.
During the same period, Zaire maintained close political ties with the then Rwandan government. Following the defeat of government forces and the end of the genocide, large numbers of perpetrators and militia members fled into Zaire.
From June 1994, Interahamwe militias, Impuzamugambi and other elements of the former regime crossed into Zaire, where they regrouped in refugee camps alongside civilians, while retaining access to weapons and forming armed structures.
The camps, including Katale, Kahindo, Mugunga, Lac Vert and Sake near Goma, hosted an estimated 850,000 people, in addition to around 650,000 refugees in areas around Bukavu and Uvira, creating one of the largest refugee concentrations in the region at the time.
