ABSTRACT
From April to July 1994, the extrem ist Hutu governm ent of Rwanda-with the aid of the Rwandan army, the Interahamwe militia, and “ordinary” Hutu civilians-massacred 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi civilians and thousands of politically moderate Hutu in one hundred days. Babies, children, and youth were deliberately targeted by the genocidaires, lest they should grow into adulthood and produce another generation of Tutsis (Geltman and Stover 1997; Des Forges 1999; Straus 2006). Children were not only victims but some children and youth also participated in the genocide as perpetrators, and some were soldiers in the Uganda-based Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel army (Des Forges 1999; Caplan 2000). This chapter focuses on the plight of children during and after the genocide, including the longer-term psychological, social, and educational consequences on child survivors and orphaned/separated children, and the role o f children and youth in the reconstruction and reconciliation processes in post-genocide Rwanda.
