Security Council apologises for failure at preventing Rwandan genocide

The United Nations Security Council, commemorating the Rwandan genocide, apologised for the UN’s failure at preventing the mass atrocities.

The former president of the Security Council at the time of the massacre, Colin Keating, addressing the council today, said,

“This briefing also provides a fitting opportunity, for me in my capacity as former President of the Council to apologise for what we failed to do in 1994 and for that to be formally recorded in the official records of the Security Council.”

Expressing the need to improve early warning mechanism at the UN, Keating added,

"Even after the genocide had begun, events were being described for several weeks as simply a resurgence of civil war. The wholesale slaughter of civilians was not being conveyed to the Council.”

See full UN press release here.

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