The Tutsi (/ˈtʊtsi/ TUUT-see[2]), also called Watusi, Watutsi or Abatutsi (Kinyarwanda pronunciation: [ɑ.βɑ.tuː.t͡si]), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region.

In the colonial era, the Tutsi were hypothesized to have arrived in the Great Lakes region from the Horn of Africa, in accordance with the Hamitic hypothesis.

However, it is unclear whether this similarity is primarily due to extensive genetic exchanges between these communities through intermarriage or whether it ultimately stems from common origins: [...] generations of gene flow obliterated whatever clear-cut physical distinctions may have once existed between these two Bantu peoples – renowned to be height, body build, and facial features.

To some extent, the permeability of these categories in the intervening decades helped to reify the biological distinctions, generating a taller elite and a shorter underclass, but with little relation to the gene pools that had existed a few centuries ago.

[20] Overt discrimination from the colonial period was continued by different Rwandan and Burundian governments, including identity cards that distinguished Tutsi and Hutu.

In 1993, Burundi's first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi officers, as was the person entitled to succeed him under the constitution.

[23] Since the 2000 Arusha Peace Process, today in Burundi the Tutsi minority shares power in a more or less equitable manner with the Hutu majority.

The Rwandan Patriotic Front, mostly made up of exiled Tutsi living primarily in Uganda, attacked Rwanda in 1990 with the intention of taking back the power.

By contrast, in the northwestern part of the country (predominantly Hutu), large regional landholders shared power, similar to Buganda society (in what is now Uganda).

Due to the Tutsi's status as a dominant minority vis-a-vis the Hutu farmers and the other local inhabitants, this relationship has been likened to that between lords and serfs in feudal Europe.

However, the royal burial customs of the latter kingdoms are quite similar to those practiced by the former Cushitic Sidama states in the southern Gibe region of Ethiopia.

The Nilotic ancestors of the Tutsi would thereby in earlier times have served as cultural intermediaries, adopting some monarchical traditions from adjacent Cushitic kingdoms and subsequently taking those borrowed customs south with them when they first settled amongst Bantu autochthones in the Great Lakes area.

[29] Scholars have long recognized that the Tutsi presence in the modern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is best understood by distinguishing between two principal groups, whose histories have been significantly shaped—and often distorted—by colonial policies and later political struggles.

[30] Colonial authorities, however, manipulated ethnic classifications to serve administrative and political purposes, a legacy that has contributed to contemporary tensions in the region.

This community, which includes both Tutsi and Hutu, is largely the result of multiple migratory waves from neighboring Rwanda, occurring over the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-genocide periods.

[32][33] The academic consensus holds that these migratory processes, far from being a single exogenous event, have complex historical antecedents that continue to influence regional politics.

Academic studies agree that the roots of the conflict lie in a mixture of colonial legacies, competition over valuable resources such as cobalt, and deep-seated political and social grievances.

Gacaca courts eventually tried more than a million (Nyseth Brehm, Uggen, and Gasanabo 2016), which led President Kagame to suggest that all Hutu bear responsibility and should apologise (Benda 2017, 13).