- April 2 – The National Convention of New Sudan of the SPLA/M opens in Chukudum.
- April 5 – Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana, commits suicide at age 27 at his home in Seattle. His body is found three days later.
- April 6 – Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira die when a missile shoots down their jet near Kigali, Rwanda. This is taken as a pretext to begin the Rwandan genocide.[2]
- April 7 – The Rwandan genocide begins in Kigali, Rwanda.[3]
- April 16 – Voters in Finland decide to join the European Union in a referendum.
- April 19 – Rapper Nas releases classic album Illmatic.
- April 20 – South Africa adopts a new national flag, replacing the “Oranje, Blanje, Blou” flag adopted in 1928 that was used during apartheid.
- April 21 – The Red Cross estimates that hundreds of thousands of Tutsi have been killed in Rwanda.
- April 25 – Sultan Azlan Muhibbudin Shah ibni Almarhum Sultan Yusuff Izzudin Shah Ghafarullahu-lahu ends his term as the 9th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- April 26
- Tuanku Jaafar ibni Almarhum Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan, becomes the 10th Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.
- China Airlines Flight 140, an Airbus A300, crashes while landing at Nagoya, Japan, killing 264 people.
- April 27 – South Africa holds its first fully multiracial elections, marking the final end of the last vestiges of apartheid. Nelson Mandela wins the elections and is sworn in as the first democratically elected president the following month.