On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down over Kigali. All on board were killed, including the new Hutu President of Burundi and several advisors to Habyarimana (110). Thomas Kamilindi, a Hutu who resigned from the radio station because of its biased reporting, “heard that large-scale massacres of Tutsis” and “Hutu oppositionists” (111) were planned by extremists. Upon hearing of the assassination, Odette and her husband decided to leave for a southern province. They planned to pick up Odette’s sister, who was a Tutsi member of Parliament—but she kept them waiting too long and all were soon ordered to remain at home.

Hutu Power orchestrated a coup. The extremists’ first priority was to murder Hutu opposition leaders, including the Prime Minister. When Belgian UNAMIR soldiers arrived too late to protect the Prime Minister, they were captured and murdered. Soon after, “the wholesale extermination of Tutsis got underway” (114), and the UNAMIR contingent did little to stop it. With the radio station RTLM promoting the killings, “Hutus young and old” (115) participated in the mass sexual assault, torture, and murder of Tutsis. Hutus looted and burned the homes of Tutsis.