In 1994, Jean-Philippe Ceppi was an independent journalist based in Kenya.
When he heard that the Rwandan president's airplane crashed on April 6, he immediately made his way to Rwanda.
When he arrived just days later in the capital, Kigali, massive killing of Tutsi civilians had already begun. Ceppi gained critical information about the countrywide massacres of Tutsi from Philippe Gaillard of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Ceppi's April 11, 1994, article in the French newspaper Libération marked the first public use of the term genocide to describe the killing in Rwanda. Ceppi was among the few journalists who focused on civilian deaths; most international coverage centered on the evacuation of foreigners and civil war.
Ceppi covered the story throughout the genocide and himself saved the lives of several Tutsi who had been thrown alive into a mass grave. He later wrote about the refugee crisis and war in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo.
He continues to work as a journalist, based in Switzerland.
