Citation
KIGALI, April 9 (Reuter) - French troops began evacuating foreigners on
Saturday from Rwanda's capital where relief officials said tribal
slaughter and renewed civil war had killed tens of thousands of people.
Witnesses said three convoys of foreigners left Kigali by road and
headed towards the relative calm of Rwanda's central African neighbour,
Burundi.
They said French forces did not control the airport, as previously
believed, and the situation in Kigali was chaotic and dangerous.
An air evacuation is out of the question,
one Western diplomat said.
The Red Cross reported tens of thousands had been killed in a two-day
orgy of violence which pitted gangs of Hutu tribesmen, backed by
renegade army units, against Tutsi rivals accused of killing President
Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, last Wednesday.
Yesterday, we were talking about thousands of dead. Today we can start
with tens of thousands,
Herve Le Guillouzic, medical coordinator of
the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Reuters.
He said corpses were everywhere -- in the houses, in the streets,
everywhere
.
Reuters Television cameraman Mohamed Shaffi said he filmed one American
and one Red Cross convoy snaking their way through the hilly city
towards the main road to the Burundi capital.
It is extremely tense. Roadblocks are manned by large groups of youths
wielding knives and handgrenades and warning they will attack and kill
French and Belgians,
Shaffi said.
Some 400 French troops flew into the city early on Saturday in three
military transports, but apparently failed to secure the airport before
venturing into the eerily-quiet city where a lull in fighting was
reported.
Belgian paratroopers, carrying tonnes of military equipment, were
supposed to land later but officials in Brussels said they might be
diverted to Burundi or Kenya. French radio reported their planes had
been unable to land after Rwandan troops opposed to their arrival
blocked the runway.
Colonel Luc Marchal, commander of Belgian forces serving with a
2,500-strong U.N. mission in the country, said government forces had
blocked the airport runway with fire trucks after the French troops
landed.
He said rebels and government forces were still fighting while aid
workers said heavy weapons were being used.
Paul Kagame, leader of the predominantly Tutsi rebel Rwanda Patriotic
Front (RPF), rejected a new interim government and said his troops
would attack and take the city.
A spokesman for the Belgian branch of Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF),
an international medical charity, said the rebels had launched an
attack on the northern town of Ruhengeri.
Gangs of Hutu youths manned roadblocks on the outskirts of Kigali and
threatened to kill any Belgians they found.
They are checking passports, demanding to know your nationality, I
have no doubt they would tear apart any Belgians they find,
Reuter
reporter Peter Smerdon said.
The Hutus accuse Belgium, the former colonial ruler, of covertly
supporting the Tutsi-dominated rebel RPF which has its main office in
Belgium.
Residents say rumours in Kigali also blame Belgian peacekeepers for a
rocket attack on the plane in which Habyarimana and his Burundi
counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, also a Hutu, were travelling last
Wednesday.
Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Elio di Rupo said the main mission of his
forces was to protect the 1,500 Belgian nationals living in the tiny
country but that provision had been made for evacuation if people
wanted to leave.
For now, the chief concern of the government is to do everything to
protect our nationals,
di Rupo said.
The United States, which has ordered its 230 citizens there to leave
and is making plans for an evacuation, sent 330 Marines and seven
military aircraft to Burundi, as well as four C-141 transport aircraft
to Kenya.
The United States agreed to lend a C-5 Galaxy
transport plane to help
the Belgian paratroopers with their deployment from Brussels.
French radio said all 600 French nationals in the country had been
asked to gather at the compound of the French embassy in Kigali.
Ten Belgian soldiers with the U.N. force were killed on Thursday,
trying in vain to protect Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Unilingyimana.
They were disarmed and shot. The prime minister was also killed as she
tried to flee.
Some of the troops preparing to leave on Saturday were from the same
unit, based at Flawinne near the city of Namur.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
