CHRONOLOGY: Timeline of events of the Rwandan genocide

Apr 6, 2009, 14:18 GMT

Former South African President Nelson Mandela (L) meets with Rwandan President Paul Kagame (R) at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa, 20 March 2009. Kagame presented Mandela with a walking stick decorated in the colours of the Rwandan flag. EPA/DENIS FARRELL / POOL

Nairobi/Kigali - After the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6 1994, Hutu militia embarked on a 100-day slaughter that saw 800,000 Tutsis and ethnic Hutus slaughtered.

Here is a chronology of the main events leading up to and following the genocide:

October 1, 1990 - Tutsi rebel group the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), formed largely from descendants of Rwandans who fled Hutu purges in 1959, invades Rwanda from Uganda.

October 3, 1993 - Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana signs a peace deal, the Arusha Accords, with the RPF in Arusha, Tanzania.

October 5, 1993 - The United Nations agrees to send in a peacekeeping force.

April 6,1994 - Habyarimana dies when his plane is shot down over Kigali as it returns from talks with the RPF in Tanzania. The Burundian president and the French crew of the plane also died in the crash. Radical Hutus blame the RPF for the attack.

April 7, 1994 - Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and 10 Belgian soldiers guarding her are butchered by Hutu forces. Rwandan troops and the Hutu Interahamwe militia start the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus whose names have been put on death lists.

April 8, 1994 - The killing begins to spread outward from the capital Kigali. Militia set up roadblocks and slaughter men, women and children on the basis of their ethnicity. Egged on by the radio, ordinary Hutus take up machetes and join in the massacre. The RPF launches a major offensive to end the killings.

April 9-10, 1994 - French and Belgian troops evacuate foreigners.

April 11, 1994 - UN soldiers protecting thousands of Tutsis at a technical school in Kigali withdraw, leaving their charges to face the machetes. The Red Cross estimates that tens of thousands have already died.

April 12, 1994 - The Hutu government retreats from the capital as invading RPF forces approach.

April 21, 1994 - The UN peacekeeping force, which has failed to prevent any of the violence, is cut back from several thousand soldiers to just 270.

April 30, 1994 - Tens of thousands of Rwandans flee into neighbouring Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) and Burundi.

May 17, 1994 - The UN Security Council issues a resolution saying that 'acts of genocide may have been committed' and approves the deployment of 5,500 peacekeepers. However, disagreements over financing delays the mission. The Red Cross estimates that over 500,000 have now died.

May 22, 1994 - The RPF captures Kigali airport and military barracks.

June 22, 1994 - The UN Security Council backs a plan by the French to protect civilians. Some 2,500 French troops deploy around refugee camps in Zaire and in southwest Rwanda.

July 4, 1994 - The RPF takes Kigali.

July 13-14 1994, - Tens of thousands of Hutus, many of them those who took part in the massacres, flee to Zaire.

July 18, 1994 - The RPF announces a ceasefire and appoints Pasteur Bizimungu as president with Faustin Twagiramungu as prime minister. RPF leader Paul Kagame is appointed vice president and defence minister.

Nov 8, 1994 - The UN agrees to set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to try the most high-profile genocide suspects.

Dec 6, 1999 - George Rutaganda, a leader of the Interahamwe, becomes the first person to be convicted by the ICTR for his role in the genocide, receiving a life sentence.

March 24, 2000 - Paul Kagame succeeds Pasteur Bizimungu as president.

August 26, 2003 - Kagame cements his position by winning the first presidential election since the genocide.

Dec 18, 2008 - The ICTR convicts former colonel Theoneste Bagosora, who is described as the 'kingpin' of the genocide. It is the biggest conviction, but only the 33rd in the tribunal's existence.