The court trying alleged perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide has expressed its shock at the death in an air crash of a top expert on the 1994 massacres. Alison Des Forges, 66, was among 50 people killed in a plane crash on Thursday near Buffalo, New York state.
A spokesman for the the UN tribunal for Rwanda called her death "a great loss", said AFP news agency.
Ms Des Forges was an expert adviser to the court on the genocide, in which some 800,000 people were killed.
"It is with deep shock that the tribunal has learned of the tragic disappearance of Alison Des Forges," said Roland Amoussouga, a spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
"It is a great loss for the world of human rights, international justice and the whole of humanity," he added.
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Ms Des Forges had testified as an expert witness at 11 genocide trials at the tribunal, which is based in Arusha, Tanzania.
She also wrote a key study of the Rwanda genocide, Leave None to Tell the Story, and was a senior adviser to US advocacy group Human Rights Watch. ...
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SIDE NOTE: For those interested in Alison DesForges thinking on the Rwandan genocide see also her joint media article with Kenneth Roth entitled "Justice or Therapy?" in the Boston Review.
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