JOHANNESBURG, April 7 (Xinhuanet) -- South African President ThaboMbeki has arrived in Kigali Wednesday to attend the 10th anniversary commemoration of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa told Xinhua.

    Mbeki and his wife are accompanied by Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, Deputy Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Dirk du Toit and other senior officials.

    "Indeed it is the hope of the South African government that theinternational community will draw a lesson on the need to respond timely and expeditiously to challenges facing humanity including tragedies as the one faced by the people of Rwanda," Mamoepa said.

    The South African delegation would participate in the commemoration service conscious of the unfortunate experiences of inhumanity that the peoples of Rwanda and South Africa went through at the hands of unjust and repressive regimes.

    Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans werekilled in 100 days in Rwanda. Most of the dead were Tutsis and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus.

    The genocide was sparked by the death of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on April 6, 1994. Enditem