Rwanda has almost always been something of a melting pot, just like other African countries. People of various ethnicities, professions, and social classes lived in the country without many more problems than surrounding nations. However, just like other countries, Rwanda still had underlying issues that still needed to be addressed. On April 9, 1994, the genocide began, resulting in the systematic massacre of more than 800,000 Rwandans. Why were these people killed in the first place? Each of these people was killed either because they were Tutsi, an ethnic group belonging to the country's upper class, or because they refused to participate in this barbaric bloodshed. After clashes between the Tutsi "upper class" and the Hutu "lower class" subsided in the early summer of 1994, the grim horror of what had just happened finally surfaced. Even more disgusting, it seemed that the whole world watched in muffled horror as Rwandans – neighbors, friends, families – killed each other and, rather than helping each other, continued their daily activities, as if nothing was happening. was. Even the organization that had been created to prevent this dilemma from happening, the United Nations, had failed to help anyone, even though many UN members were present in Rwanda when it was happening. Overall, the United Nations, and the entire world itself, were either too poorly organized, too cowardly, or too apathetic to even begin to do any good outside their own nations. Before the genocide even began, Hutu and Tutsi had already faced fierce hostility years before any violence was immediately evident. Even before the start of colonialism in the 1800s, the Hutu and Tut...... middle of paper ......2010. .Hunter, Jane. “While Rwanda was bleeding, the media stood idly by. " FAIR. July/August 1994: 8-9. Hilsum, Lindsey. "UNITED NATIONS - What the hell were they doing?." People, ideas, action in the fight for global justice | New Internationalist. December 1994. May 24, 2010. .Moeller, Susan D. Compassion Fatigue: How the Media Sells Illness, Famine, War and Death. 1 ed. New York: Routledge, 1999. Overfield, James. Sources of world history of the twentieth century. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. Rusesabagina, Paul and Tom Zoellner. An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography. Boston: Penguin (Non-Classics), 2007. Twagilimana, Amiable. Hutu and Tutsi (Library of the heritage of African peoples of Central Africa). 1st ed. New York: Rosen Publishing Group, 1998.