Hotel Ibis (Butare)

The Hôtel Ibis of Butare is one of the oldest hotels of the Rwanda.

In the beginning, the building sheltered the first cinema of the city (called then Astrida). The hotel opened the doors of its rooms in 1942. In 1949, it accommodated Andrew Marton, Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger which turned to Nyanza of the scenes external for the film '' the Mines of the king Solomon ''. Before the independence of 1962, its terrace and its bar were the place of appointment of all Europeans of the country and of some Rwandan privileged. It became then the place that were to attend the notable ones and professors of the University near.

December 31st 1992, in the restaurant of the hotel, a bomb (probably programmed to burst during the evening of midnight supper) exploded in the afternoon; there was no victim. In April 1994, during the genocide, and after the men of the presidential guard had assassinated the prefect Jean-Baptiste Habyarimana, and that most of the personnel of the hotel had fled, " Jerry" Robert Kajuga, the national president of the Interahamwe, settled with his killers and some young girls of which it made his sexual slaves in the most beautiful rooms. He remained there until the arrival of the soldiers of the Rwandan Face Patriotic (F.P.R), who established in their turn their districts there.

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