Melchior Ndadaye

Melchior Ndadaye was born on March 28, 1953, in Murama. Fleeing the 1972 violence to Rwanda, Ndadaye earned a degree in economics and banking from the National University of Rwanda and the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris, returning to Burundi in 1983 to work in rural development banks.

In 1986, Ndadaye founded the clandestine Front for Democracy in Burundi (FRODEBU). In Burundi's historic first multiparty democratic elections in June 1993, Ndadaye won 65% of the vote, forming an inclusive government with a Tutsi prime minister (Sylvie Kinigi). On October 21, 1993, military mutineers seized the presidential palace and brutally executed Ndadaye at Camp Muha, plunging the nation into a decade-long civil war.