Citation
BONN, April 11 (Reuter) - A group of about 120 Germans, some 20 Swiss
nationals and several Belgians arrived in Bonn early on Monday after
fleeing the fighting in Rwanda.
They had travelled on Saturday in convoys to Bujumbura, capital of
neigbouring Burundi, and were then flown to Bonn in a German army
Airbus plane.
The German foreign ministry said two further convoys with about 100
Germans were heading out of Rwanda for Burundi. Bonn has estimated that
about 300 Germans resided in the central African country.
Eleven staff members of Germany's Deutsche Welle radio and their
families were still trapped by mines and gunfire in the radio station's
office in the Rwandan capital Kigali.
They cannot move. The street outside is mined and there is heavy
fighting in the area,
a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The Deutsche Welle workers were in contact with Germany by radio and
telephone.
Germany's ambassador and his wife have remained in the city and would
stay there until the radio workers could escape.
The ambassador will stay as long as he can answer for his own safety,
the spokesman told reporters.
The German government is trying to arrange for the use of a helicopter
to get the Germans out.
The Deutsche Welle employees had tried to join convoys leaving for
Burundi but were unable to get through roadblocks set up by soldiers.
Carrying few possessions and dressed in summer clothes, those who
managed to fly out on the army plane came back to drizzling rain and
cold in Germany.
Most said they had never felt threatened in Rwanda, where tribal
fighting has claimed about 10,000 lives.
As Europeans, we always felt we were somehow taboo,
said Hildegard
Barth, 51, who had worked at a French school in the central African
country.
Wolfgang Peterhaensel, who worked in Rwanda on a German-run aid
project, hid Rwandan Finance Minister Marc Rungera in his house for two
days while soldiers outside hunted down and executed government
ministers.
Rungera had knocked on his door a day after the rocket-attack killing
of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi last Wednesday, which sparked
the bloodshed.
He said he was frightened for his life. We hid him for two days
despite a terrible fear of raids by soldiers,
Peterhaensel said. We
don't know what happened to him.
German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel on Sunday expressed his gratitude
to Burundian Foreign Minister Jean-Marie Ngendahayo for Burundi's help
in the evacuation efforts.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
