Gunmen attack home of Rwanda’s ex-general

Rwandan exile Kayumba Nyamwasa and his wife Rosette. File photo: Denis Farrell

Rwandan exile Kayumba Nyamwasa and his wife Rosette. File photo: Denis Farrell

Published Mar 6, 2014

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Johannesburg - Exiled Rwandan ex-army boss Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who was shot in 2010, has survived another assassination attempt at his Johannesburg home this week, an opposition party said on Thursday.

A group of armed men stormed Nyamwasa's house in Bruma overnight on Monday to Tuesday “looking for him”.

“General Nyamwasa and his family survived because at the time of the attack they were not in the house,” the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) said in a statement.

The party “has no doubt that those who have always attempted to get rid of General Nyamwasa may also be behind the attack”.

Nyamwasa has already survived other two assassination attempts more than three years ago.

He was shot in the stomach outside his home in June 2010, four months after receiving political asylum in South Africa.

The former army chief said then he believed that the assassination attempt was retribution for his claims that President Paul Kagame had ordered a former president's air plane shot down, an act that sparked the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

A source close to the family said that the gunmen “overpowered” police officers that guard Kayumba's house in Bruma.

“They searched almost every room,” said the source who chose not to be named.

“It can't be an armed robbery. You don't ask where 'are the people?'“ when staging a robbery, he added.

Rwanda's former intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya, also exiled in SA, was found strangled to death in a Johannesburg luxury hotel on New Year's Day.

Without referring to the Karegeya's case, Kagame has warned dissidents that “treason brings consequences”.

Police did not respond to calls asking for comment on the latest attack on Nyamwasa. - Sapa-AFP

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