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PARIS, April 8 (Reuter) - Two French humanitarian aid groups said on Friday they were evacuating workers from Rwanda because of massacres and chaos in the central African country.
Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) and Pharmaciens Sans Frontieres (Pharmacists Without Borders) said in a joint statement the decision to evacuate foreign staff was taken to protect the lives of their workers.
A Medecins du Monde spokeswoman said the group had seven French workers in Rwanda, including six in the southern town of Cyangugu and one in the capital Kigali.
Pharmaciens Sans Frontieres could not be reached.
``No medical operation can be planned in the chaos that currently reigns in Kigali where massacres are multiplying,'' the statement said.
The two French aid groups said workers in Kigali were together at a secure site awaiting evacuation. Workers in Cyangugu were being protected by United Nations peacekeeping troops and would be evacuated to nearby Zaire.
Earlier on Friday the director of the Belgian branch of the medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) said several dozen Rwandans working for international aid organisations in Kigali had been massacred.
MSF director Georges Dallemagne told Reuters that armed men, believed to be from Rwanda's presidential guard, had shot the aid workers dead in front of expatriate staff.
France is considering using troops stationed in the Central African Republic to evacuate its estimated 600 nationals from Rwanda, military sources said on Friday.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
