{"id":53825,"date":"2025-04-11T08:21:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T08:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/how-burundi-s-former-president-ntaryamira-hitched-the-flight-that-ended-his\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T21:22:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T21:22:20","slug":"how-burundi-s-former-president-ntaryamira-hitched-the-flight-that-ended-his","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/how-burundi-s-former-president-ntaryamira-hitched-the-flight-that-ended-his\/","title":{"rendered":"How Burundi\u2019s former President, Ntaryamira hitched the flight that ended his life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>He had just wrapped up a regional summit in Arusha, Tanzania, where heads of state from Rwanda, Burundi, and neighboring countries had gathered to discuss regional security. The meeting dragged on, and Ntaryamira was in a rush to return home.<\/p>\n<p>His own jet, a sleek Falcon, was out of commission, undergoing repairs in Switzerland. Instead, he had made the trip to Arusha in a painfully slow Beechcraft he had borrowed, what one might call a flying tractor by presidential standards.<\/p>\n<p>Desperate to avoid a late-night arrival in Bujumbura, Ntaryamira decided to pull strings. According to his former security chief, D\u00e9o Ngendahayo, the Burundian president made an unplanned request to his Rwandan counterpart Juv\u00e9nal Habyarimana and asked, quite literally, for a \u201clift\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe stood up and said, \u2018I\u2019m going to ask President Habyarimana for a ride. I\u2019m running late. It wasn\u2019t something we had planned. There was no time to discuss security. He made the decision on the spot,\u201d Ngendahayo recalled.<\/p>\n<p>Habyarimana agreed, but only had three extra seats; one for Ntaryamira himself, one for his minister, and one for his aide-de-camp. Ngendahayo, who was in charge of the president\u2019s security, didn\u2019t make the cut, an opportunity that would turn out to be a twist of fate that saved his life.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier that day, Habyarimana had visited Gbadolite in Zaire to meet Mobutu Sese Seko. Intelligence had reportedly warned him that if he went to the summit in Arusha, his plane would be shot down. Still, he went, perhaps thinking he could outfly fate.<\/p>\n<p>At 8 p.m., as the Dassault Falcon 50 approached Kanombe Airport, two missiles struck it from the sky. The plane exploded midair and crashed into the garden of Habyarimana\u2019s own residence in Kanombe. Everyone on board died instantly, including Ntaryamira, the man who had begged for a faster ride home.<\/p>\n<p>Ngendahayo has since denied any conspiracy suggesting Habyarimana brought Ntaryamira aboard to shield himself with another head of state. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like that,\u201d he said. \u201cHe just asked. And Habyarimana said yes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A rushed decision, a borrowed seat, a fatal shortcut. In the end, the president of Burundi didn\u2019t just miss his ride, he hitched one straight into history\u2019s deadliest turning points.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-85415 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/pic-128.jpg\" alt=\"The plane carrying Presidents Habyarimana and Ntaryamira was shot down by a missile on April 6, 1994.\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-85414 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/pic_1-278.jpg\" alt=\"A rushed decision, a borrowed seat, a fatal shortcut. The president of Burundi hitched a flight that plunged him straight to his death.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was April 6, 1994, a day that would end with two presidents dead and the world on the edge of catastrophe. Cyprien Ntaryamira, President of Burundi, was running late. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":2000085413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-53825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-news-home","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000085413,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/profile-11.png","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/png","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/profile-11.png","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/profile-11.png","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/profile-11.png","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/profile-11.png","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/profile-11.png","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000085413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53825"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=53825"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=53825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}