Anne Rwigara, one of Rwanda’s most vocal opposition figures passed away in her home in California, United States on Thursday, December 28.
She was aged 41 and was said to have succumbed to multiple organ failures after suffering stomach complications.
However, according to Anne’s mother, her daughter’s death was startling since she was not ill at the time of her passing.
“She was not sick. It’s just a matter of days. It’s just a mystery,” her mother, Adeline Rwigara stated while grieving at the unfortunate demise.
Her death marks another tragic turn in the Rwigara family, which began when Anne’s sister, Diane Rwigara in May 2017 announced her intention to run for the presidency against the incumbent President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame.
However, Rwanda’s Electoral body disqualified Diane from running, ruling that the hundreds of signatures she submitted to validate her candidacy were fake.
Subsequently, Anne and her mother Adeline Rwigara spent a year in jail over alleged tax evasion and electoral malpractices. On the tax evasion charges, the Rwanda Revenue Authority notified the Rwigara family that they owed $6.7 million in taxes.
Due to these convictions, the Rwandan government closed the family business and froze their bank accounts.
The government went further to auction the Rwigara’s tobacco company, which at the time was their last remaining asset.
In October 2018, the Rwandan High Court decided to acquit Diane and Adeline Rwigara of all charges against them.
The two women had been arbitrarily detained between September 2017 and October 2018 on politically motivated charges and faced up to 22 years in prison, if convicted.
A year later, Anne Rwigara was declared missing and only five days later, the Rwandan police confirmed to have arrested her alongside her mother and sister. This was despite the police having denied having them in custody previously.
A statement from the police said they had “applied the warrant against Adeline Rwigara, Diane Rwigara and Anne Rwigara as stipulated in article 48 of the criminal procedural law.”
In February 2015, the family patriarch, a prominent businessman in Rwanda Assinapol Rwigara died, in a car accident.
The Rwigara family, however, disputed this version of events and asked President Paul Kagame to probe the patriarch’s mysterious death. There were claims that it was an assassination. In response, Kagame demolished Rwigara’s hotel in Nyarugenge district, Kigali.