Rwanda

REGION: Central Africa
CAPITAL CITY: Kigali
POPULATION: 8,882,000
LAND AREA: The size of Massachusetts

Ethnic instability, having plagued Rwanda for decades, culminated in the genocide of April to July 1994 — Africa's worst genocide in modern times — killing some 800,000 people and spurring more than two million to flee as refugees to neighboring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and DR Congo (at the time, "Zaire"). Since then, most of the refugees have returned. Rwanda held its first post-genocide elections in 1999 (local) and 2003 (legislative and presidential). Yet today, reconciliation between members of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups in Rwanda — as in Burundi — remains a process, not complete. Rwandans also face poverty, food shortage and an overburdened, although innately fertile, ecosystem. Already small, Rwanda is the continent's most densely populated country, with 846 people per square mile (327 people per square kilometer) and 90 percent of those people dependent on farming.