Rwanda

Four former senior officers of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have described the deep-rooted anti-Tutsi ideology that has sustained the armed group, speaking after defecting and returning to Rwanda. The officers, who underwent rehabilitation at the Mutobo demobilisation centre, told Al Jazeera they were taught to view Tutsis as enemies long before the 1994 genocide, with one recalling that Tutsis were referred to as 'snakes' in military training. Their accounts provide insight into how the group's ideology formed in pre-genocide Rwanda, evolved in exile in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and continues to fuel regional instability.