Melchior Ndadaye was a Burundian banker and politician who became the first democratically elected and first Hutu president of Burundi after winning the landmark 1993 election. Though he attempted to smooth the country's bitter ethnic divide, his reforms antagonised soldiers in the Tutsi-dominated army, and he was assassinated amidst a failed military coup in October 1993, after only three months in office. His assassination sparked an array of brutal tit-for-tat massacres between the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups, and ultimately led to the decade-long Burundi Civil War.
President Ndadaye in 1993
Ndadaye speaking at a FRODEBU rally following his electoral victory in 1993
Ndadaye greeting Prime Minister Sylvie Kinigi at Bujumbura airport, 1993
Ndadaye's casket lowered into his grave
The Burundian Civil War was a civil war in Burundi lasting from 1993 to 2005. The civil war was the result of longstanding ethnic divisions between the Hutu and the Tutsi ethnic groups. The conflict began following the first multi-party elections in the country since its independence from Belgium in 1962, and is seen as formally ending with the swearing-in of President Pierre Nkurunziza in August 2005. Children were widely used by both sides in the war. The estimated death toll stands at 300,000.
People fleeing during 1993 Burundian genocide that marked the civil war's start
Building torched during the 1993 genocide
Ex-President Pierre Buyoya took over the Burundian government in the 1996 coup
Pierre Nkurunziza was elected president in 2005