Citation
NAIROBI, April 10 (Reuter) - I feared for my life every moment,
American missionary Marty Felds said on Sunday after escaping from a
tribal bloodbath in the heart of Africa.
It is not very comfortable when bullets are flying around, when you
hear mortar fire nearby. Yes, it felt dangerous,
he told Reuters after
travelling by road from Rwanda to Burundi and flying on to Kenya.
Felds, a 25-year-old Texan, said he watched a Rwandan friend put to
death by soldiers in Kigali, capital of the small overcrowded land that
plunged into chaos when its president's plane was shot down on
Wednesday.
These things are shocking, heart-breaking,
he said.
In deserted farmlands south of Kigali, the bodies of massacre victms in
tattered clothes were strewn across the road that took the American to
safety.
The American convoy was stopped at several roadblocks and took 15 hours
to reach the Burundi capital Bujumbura, said Felds, one of 50 Americans
in a planeload of 80 shocked Westerners flown to Nairobi on Sunday.
A second plane was on its way and U.S. Secretary of State Warren
Christopher said in Washington the evacuation of Americans from Rwanda
was over.
Never again,
said Claudia Cantel, a U.S. aid worker after fleeing
Rwanda for the second time in 3-1/2 years.
She was evacuated in October 1990 when rebels of the Rwanda Patriotic
Front invaded from Uganda.
The U.S. aid director in Rwanda, Dick Dijkernan, said he left Kigali in
chaos and complete anarchy
with thousands of frightened Rwandans
barricaded in their homes.
But he denied reports that the U.S. convoy had been shot at. There
were bullets everywhere. It is presumptuous to think they shot at us.
Baptist missionary David Hooter, 36, of Dallas, who fled with his
children aged seven and eight, talked of a complete mess, a shattered
state, a destroyed people, chaos, chaos
.
It was scaring. Fires out in the surburbs, people carrying murderous
weapons across town, civilians hunting for civilians to kill, no order,
nothing,
said Hooter.
We have no idea whether we shall go back. We would love to but life is
dangerous out there,
Hooter said.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
