Retired Lieutenant Colonel Rose Kanyange Kabuye rose to the highest rank in the Rwandan Army. She was also an advocate for the training of women leaders. Rose Kanyange was born on April 22, 1961, in Muvumba, Rwanda, to Kabuye Kanyange of the ‘Bazigaba’ clan. Information … Read MoreRose Kanyange Kabuye (1961- )
Dr. Lisa DeNell Cook is an economist and a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She is the first African American woman to sit on the Board. Cook was born in 1964 and raised in Milledgeville, Georgia. She is one of three daughters of … Read MoreLisa D. Cook (1964- )
Grégoire Kayibanda was the first president of Rwanda. He was born on May 1, 1924, in Musambira, Rwanda. He attended primary school in his home village and then in 1947 he completed his studies at the Major Seminary in Nyakibanda, Rwanda. Kayibanda then worked as … Read MoreGrégoire Kayibanda (1924-1976)
Dr. Claire Karekezi is the first and sole female neurosurgeon in all of Rwanda and has served as a consultant neurosurgeon at the Rwandan Military Hospital in the country’s capital, Kigali, since 2018. As a child, Dr. Karekezi’s fondness for the sciences blossomed into the … Read MoreClaire Karekezi (1984- )
Kofi Atta Annan, born on April 8, 1938 in Kumasi, Ghana, served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) between 1997 and 2006. He was the first person of African descent to hold that post. Annan grew up in Kumasi but attended Mfantsipim School, … Read MoreKofi A. Annan (1938-2018)
Tatiana Rusesabagina, best known for helping her husband Paul Rusesabagina in protecting 1,268 refugees in the Hotel des Milles Collines during the Rwandan genocide, was born as Tatiana Mukangamije on October 24, 1958 in Butare, Rwanda into a Tutsi family. She studied to become a nurse in the Rwandan city of Ruhengeri … Read MoreTatiana Rusesabagina (1958- )
Paul Rusesabagina, a former Rwandan hotel manager who protected 1,268 people from the 1994 Rwandan genocide, was born in 1954 in a Hutu family of farmers. Before working in the hotel business, Rusesabagina went to a missionary school in central Rwanda and attended the Faculty of Theology in Cameroon. In 1984, he became … Read MorePaul Rusesabagina (1954- )
Paul Kagame, the current President of Rwanda, was born in Gitarama, central Rwanda, on October 23, 1957, into a Tutsi family. In 1959 when the massacres of Tutsis by Hutus began, Paul Kagame’s family fled to Uganda along with thousands of Tutsis, to save their lives. He grew up … Read MorePaul Kagame (1957- )
Juvénal Habyarimana, President of Rwanda, was born on March 8, 1937, in Gasiza, in the Gisenyi province of what was at this time the Ruanda-Urundi mandate, controlled by Belgium. Habyarimana was an Hutu, whose parents, Jean-Baptiste Ntibazilikana and Suzanne Nyirazuba, were Christians. He went to a Catholic primary school, but then … Read MoreJuvénal Habyarimana (1937-1994)
Interahamwe, translated from Kinyarwanda to English as “those who work/ fight together,” is an African paramilitary and terrorist group currently based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. Composed mainly of young Hutu men, Interahamwe was one of the major belligerents against the Tutsi in Rwanda, leading … Read MoreInterahamwe (1992- )
