Rwanda's President Paul Kagame on Sunday said the international community had "failed" his country during the 1994 genocide, as he paid tribute to victims 30 years after Hutu extremists tore apart the nation.

"Rwanda was completely humbled by the magnitude of our loss. And the lessons we learned are engraved in blood," Kagame said in Kigali during a solemn ceremony to commemorate a 100-day massacre that claimed the lives of 800,000 people, largely Tutsis but also moderate Hutus.

"It was the international community which failed all of us, whether from contempt or cowardice," he said, addressing an audience that included several African heads of state and former US president Bill Clinton, who had called the genocide the biggest failure of his administration.

In keeping with tradition, the ceremonies on 7 April — the day Hutu militias unleashed the carnage in 1994 — began with Kagame placing wreathes on mass graves and lighting a remembrance flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where more than 250,000 victims are believed to be buried.

Rwandans will also stage a march and hold a candlelit vigil in the capital for those killed in the slaughter.

The tiny nation has since found its footing under the iron-fisted rule of Kagame, who led the rebel militia which ended the genocide, but the scars of the violence remain, leaving a trail of destruction across Africa's Great Lakes region.

The international community's failure to intervene has been a cause of lingering shame, with African Union chief Moussa Faki Mahamat saying in Kigali that "no one, not even the African Union, can exonerate themselves from their inaction."

"Let us have the courage to recognise it, and take responsibility for it."

'Infernal'

French President Emmanuel Macron released a video message on Sunday, saying he stood by his comments in May 2021 when he acknowledged France's role in the genocide and its refusal to heed warnings of looming massacres, but stopped short of an official apology.

"I have no word to add, no word to take away from what I told you that day," Macron said Sunday.

"We have all abandoned hundreds of thousands of victims to this infernal closed door."

At the time of the genocide, the French government had been a long-standing backer of Rwanda's Hutu-dominated regime, leading to decades of tensions between the two countries.

The French presidency had said on Thursday that Macron would release a message saying France and its Western and African allies "could have stopped" the bloodshed but lacked the will to do so.

The eventual message did not however represent a significant step forward from Macron's earlier comments on the genocide.

Sunday's events mark the start of a week of national mourning, with Rwanda effectively coming to a standstill and national flags flown at half-mast.

Music will not be allowed in public places or on the radio, while sports events and movies are banned from TV broadcasts, unless connected to what has been dubbed "Kwibuka (Remembrance) 30".

Fleeing justice

The assassination of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana on the night of April 6, when his plane was shot down over Kigali, triggered the rampage by Hutu extremists and the "Interahamwe" militia.

Victims were shot, beaten or hacked to death in killings fuelled by vicious anti-Tutsi propaganda broadcast on TV and radio. At least 250,000 women were raped, according to UN figures.

The country is home to more than 200 memorials to the genocide and new mass graves continue to be uncovered.

In 2002, Rwanda set up community tribunals where victims heard "confessions" from those who had persecuted them, although rights watchdogs said the system also resulted in miscarriages of justice.

Today, Rwandan ID cards do not mention whether a person is Hutu or Tutsi.

Secondary school students learn about the genocide as part of a tightly controlled curriculum. 

According to Rwanda, hundreds of genocide suspects remain at large, including in neighbouring nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda.

Only 28 have been extradited to Rwanda from around the world.

France, one of the top destinations for Rwandans fleeing justice at home, has tried and convicted half a dozen people over their involvement in the killings.