U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents last week confirmed the departure of a Rwandan man suspected of human rights abuses in his home country, who had been residing in Buffalo, New York. Peter Kalimu, aka Pierre Kalimu, aka Fidele Twizere, was denaturalized and ordered removed from the U.S. following charges alleging his involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He departed the U.S., Oct. 21.
According to court documents Kalimu was living in Rwanda in 1994, when violent conflict erupted between the country’s two major ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. During the conflict, often referred to as the Rwandan genocide, members of the majority Hutu population persecuted the minority Tutsis, committing mass murder and looting their property, among other crimes. An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the three-month genocide. The complaint against Kalimu alleged that he participated in two attacks on Tutsi families in his neighborhood during the genocide, and that he looted property from Tutsi families whose houses he then destroyed. Kalimu denied these allegations.