Rwanda Marks Genocide Commemoration

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame said the international community had "failed" his country during the 1994 genocide, as he paid tribute to the 800,000 victims when Hutu extremists tore apart the nation 30 years ago.

"Rwanda was completely humbled by the magnitude of our loss. And the lessons we learned are engraved in blood," Kagame said during a solemn ceremony in Kigali to commemorate the 100-day massacre of mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus.

"It was the international community which failed all of us, whether from contempt or cowardice," he told an audience that included African heads of state and former US president Bill Clinton, who had called the genocide the biggest failure of his administration.

In keeping with tradition, the ceremonies on April 7 -- the day Hutu militias unleashed the carnage in 1994 -- began with Kagame placing wreathes on mass graves and lighting a remembrance flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims are believed to be buried.

As the day drew to a close, a choir performed before thousands of people in a Kigali arena holding up candles in memory of those killed in the slaughter.

The tiny nation has since found its footing under the iron-fisted rule of Kagame, who led the rebel militia which ended the genocide, but the scars of the violence remain across Africa's Great Lakes region.

The international community's failure to intervene has been a cause of lingering shame, with African Union chief Moussa Faki Mahamat saying in Kigali that "no one, not even the African Union, can exonerate themselves from their inaction."

"Let us have the courage to recognise it, and take responsibility for it."

These events mark the start of a week of national mourning, with Rwanda effectively coming to a standstill and national flags flown at half-mast.