Twa

(For the airline TWA, see Trans World Airlines)

The Twa are a pygmy people, of short stature, who were the oldest recorded inhabitants of an area in central Africa that now comprises the nations of Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

When the Hutu, a Bantu-derived people, arrived in the region, they dominated the Twa. Around the 15th century AD, the Tutsi, a Nilotic people, subsequently arrived, possibly from Ethiopia, and dominated both the Twa and the Hutu. The Twa speak the same language, Kinyarwanda, as the Hutu and Tutsi. For several hundred years, the Twa have been a very small minority in the area (currently 1% in Rwanda and Burundi) and have had little political role. They are often ignored in discussions about the conflict between Hutus and Tutsis, which reached its height in the Rwandan genocide of 1994.