The cease-fire ended abruptly on 6 April 1994 when President Habyarimana 's plane was shot down near Kigali Airport , killing both Habyarimana and the new President of Burundi , Cyprien Ntaryamira . The pair were returning home from a regional summit in Dar es Salaam at which the leaders of Kenya , Uganda , and Tanzania , had urged Habyarimana to stop delaying the implementation of the Arusha accords . The attackers remain unknown . Prunier , in his book written shortly after the incident , concluded that it was most likely a coup carried out by extreme Hutu members of Habyarimana 's government . This theory was disputed in 2006 by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière and in 2008 by Spanish judge Fernando Andreu . Both alleged that Kagame and the RPF were responsible . At the end of 2010 the French Government ordered a more thorough judicial inquiry , which employed ballistics experts . This report reaffirmed the initial theory that Hutu extremists assassinated Habyarimana
was shot down
Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira
Rwandan Civil War