Rwanda Facts

Landlocked mountainous Rwanda - known as the 'land of a thousand hills' - is about the size of Munster - about 26,000 square kilometres located in east central Africa.

It borders Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Uganda - and has a temperate climate.

Rwanda has a population of just over 11 million people, a growth rate of 2.18 per cent, and is the most densely populated country in Africa.

Between April and July 1994 over 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu men, women and children where horrifically slaughtered in what was one of the most grotesque acts of organised genocide in world history.

Rwanda has made a massive recovery since the genocide in its security and economic development.

Over 150,000 people have HIV/AIDS and there is a prevalence rate of 2.8 per cent, down from 13 per cent in 2005.

Malaria and malnutrition remains to be one of the single biggest causes of deaths in Rwanda - infecting an estimated 900,000 a year, and in 2006 counted for 41 per cent of hospital deaths, and 42 per cent of them were children.