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Fulgence Kayishema on a wanted poster: One of four fugitives
Photo: UNITED NATIONS / AFP
He had been on the run since 2001 and is considered one of the "world's most wanted" perpetrators suspected of genocide: Fulgence Kayishema has been arrested in South Africa, according to the UN. The Rwandan citizen allegedly committed crimes against humanity in his country during the 1994 genocide.
The wanted man, a former police officer, was arrested on Wednesday in the small town of Paarl near the metropolis of Cape Town.
Children among those murdered
The man is accused of orchestrating the killing of about 2000,<> people from the Tutsi ethnic group who had sought refuge in a Catholic church during the genocide. Among the victims were also children, it said.
The proceedings for the genocide are usually heard by the UN Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.
The tribunal had indicted Kayishema in 2001 for genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
In just about a hundred days in 1994, militias of the Hutu majority murdered members of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda, East Africa. At least 800,000 people were killed. Hundreds of thousands have been victims of sexual violence.
fek/aeh/dpa/Reuters