Rwandan Civil War
Rwandan Patriotic Front takes full control of Kigali
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Kigali fell on 4 July. The defeated army still had two more weeks of retreat and fighting in it, and the government it served had left the city in April.
A weekend of fighting for the capital
On 4 July 1994, Rwandan Patriotic Front forces took full military control of Kigali after a weekend of intense fighting with government forces.
RPF troops captured key state and military sites, including the Ministry of Defense and army headquarters, along with church compounds that had been inside government-held territory.
The defeat pushed the remaining Rwandan Armed Forces out of the capital and into a retreat toward their positions in the northwest.
What was left in Kigali to lose
The interim government had moved out to Gitarama on 12 April, so what fell on 4 July was its last military hold on the city rather than its first departure from it.
Government fighting capacity had been crumbling since late June. With ceasefire talks stalled, the RPF pressed its offensive to take the capital and the government forces' rear areas.
UN officials reported the fall of the capital while UNAMIR continued its efforts to obtain a ceasefire.
The war ran on for another fortnight
The RPF took Butare on 5 July and pushed on toward Ruhengeri and Gisenyi. The United Nations dates the effective end of the civil war to the RPF's unilateral ceasefire on 18 July.
Holding Kigali was not holding Rwanda. Government forces still held territory in the northwest, and the French-led Operation Turquoise occupied a zone in the southwest.
Paul Kagame commanded the RPF campaign but did not become head of state on 4 July: a broad-based Government of National Unity was formed on 19 July, with Pasteur Bizimungu as president and Kagame as vice-president and defense minister.
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