Cyprien Ntaryamira

Cyprien Ntaryamira (6 March 1955 – 6 April 1994) was a Burundian politician who served as President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his death two months later in the context of the Burundian Civil War.

A Hutu born in Burundi, Ntaryamira studied there before fleeing to Rwanda to avoid ethnic violence and complete his education. Active in a Burundian student movement, he cofounded the socialist Burundi Workers' Party and earned an agricultural degree. In 1983, he returned to Burundi and worked agricultural jobs, though he was briefly detained as a political prisoner. In 1986 he cofounded the Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU), and in 1993 FRODEBU won Burundi's general elections. He subsequently became the Minister of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry on 10 July under the rule of Burundi's new FRODEBU president Melchior Ndadaye, but in October Tutsi soldiers killed Ndadaye and other top officials in an attempted coup, inciting the civil war.

Ntaryamira survived the putsch and in January 1994 the National Assembly elected him to succeed Ndadaye as the President of Burundi. After a prolonged constitutional dispute, he was inaugurated on 5 February, declaring that his top priorities would be restoring peace, promoting human rights, and resettling refugees. Throughout his tenure he unsuccessfully sought to mitigate ethnic conflict. He was killed on 6 April 1994 when the plane he was travelling in with Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali.