Court weighs survivors' claim that French troops stood by during Rwanda genocide
The Paris Court of Appeal has set a date to rule on whether to dismiss long-standing accusations that French troops knowingly failed to prevent a massacre in the Bisesero hills of western Rwanda during the 1994 genocide.
The court this week began examining an appeal from civil parties against a 2018 decision to dismiss the case.
Initially scheduled for the end of May, the hearing was postponed to 19 September. The following day, the court announced that a final ruling would be delivered on 11 December.
At Thursday's hearing, the public prosecutor's office had requested that the case be dismissed outright.
In 2005, six survivors of the Bisesero massacre joined with NGOs to file a complaint against French soldiers for allegedly abandoning hundreds of Tutsis who had fled to the Bisesero hills in late June 1994 – only returning three days later, by which time most had been slaughtered by Hutu militia.
French forces were deployed in Rwanda at the time as part of Operation Turquoise, a UN-mandated military intervention launched in the final weeks of the genocide to establish "safe zones" for Rwandans fleeing the killing.
Rwanda marks 30 years since France's contested mission to stem 1994 genocide
Decades of accusations
"It is time the judicial page was turned too," Lambert said.
Read more on RFI English
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