General Romeo Dallaire was depressed. In fact, he was more than depressed-he had been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and had tried to kill himself several times. He was taking prescribed drugs for depression, but the Army doctors said that he was not responding to treatment. He had begun drinking too, a dangerous thing to do when taking medicines. At one point, his lowest point, the mixture of psychoactive drugs and alcohol put him almost into a coma. His medical report had judged him incapable of commanding troops in operations anymore, and so his career-an illustrious one that he had devoted nearly his whole life to-was down the drain as far as he was concerned (CBC News In-depth web site). Dallaire had been assigned in 1993 to Rwanda as Force Commander of UNAMIR. His mission was to oversee the peace accord between the country's two main groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis and "to supervise the peaceful transfer of power to the new Rwandan government" (Allen, 2002; and Wikipedia web site). .

             The commander of the Rwandan Army led Dallaire to believe that the Rwandan Army was getting ready to demobilize and integrate. However, on the night of April 6-7, 1994 Hutu extremists shot down Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane over the Kigali Airport, and began to execute Tutsis and Hutu moderates and all the elected officials of the new government. Dallaire ordered ten of his best men (Belgian soldiers) to guard the new Rwandan Prime Minister, but the Hutu extremists took the Belgian soldiers hostage and then murdered them They killed Madame Agathe and her husband too. Belgium officials became angry that Dallaire had sent their soldiers into a lethal situation and withdrew their forces. After the Belgian withdrawal, Dallaire consolidated what was left of his forces, which were far fewer in number than what he needed. He requested reinforcements for UNAMIR, requesting 5,000 more troops, but the UN refused.