The Rwandan genocide in 1994 witnessed the murder of approximately 800,000 Rwandans in the span of three months . This violence , as also experienced in the Nigerian Civil War in 1967 , was arguably due to ethnicity and the rivalries between ethnic groups . The dominant Hutu ethnic group in Rwanda felt they must kill their ethnic neighbours , the Tutsi , due to established differences in ethnic identities which set them apart . As historian Sandra Joireman argues , " this type of explanation of the Rwanda genocide and its horrific violence , with its emphasis on the causes being due to the difference in Kinship and beliefs of the two ethnic groups , is a primordialist view "
Rwandan genocide
Rwandan genocide
Primordialism