On April 7, 1994, Linda Thomas-Greenfield was staying at the home of a senior U.S. diplomat in Rwanda when she was confronted by an armed man who intended to kill her. It was the start of the Rwandan genocide, in which armed militias carried out the mass killing of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsi minorities and moderate Hutus over the course of 100 days.
Thomas-Greenfield, then the U.S. regional refugee coordinator with the State Department, was faced with a life-or-death case of mistaken identity, at one point with an AK-47 assault rifle in her face.
