Citation
KIGALI, April 11 (Reuter) - Dawn broke over the Rwandan capital Kigali
on Monday and brought bursts of heavy machinegun clattering around
streets soaked in the blood of rotting corpses and patrolled by roving
bands of drunken soldiers.
U.N. sources said a shell hit a Kigali hospital late on Sunday, killing
27 people and injuring more than 100, in renewed fighting between
Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels and government forces.
Top Rwandan rebel leaders said their forces comprised of two battalions
were closing in on Kigali from three sides to take over and restore
order in the chaotic city.
Those two battalions on the outskirts are just a vanguard of a much
larger force,
a Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) commander, Wilson
Rutayisire, told Reuters. He added that the RPF had taken over
significant amounts of territory since fighting broke out last week.
Reports said tribal bloodletting sparked by last Wednesday's killing of
the president had also spread to the countryside, where RPF rebels have
relaunched a three-year civil war.
Spanish missionary nuns in the western Rwandan town of Kibuye said the
town's hospital had been attacked and gangs were killing all over the
place
.
They have already killed some of our patients,
she said. We have
just received general absolution, the parish priest came,
one nun told
Spanish radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation in
Nairobi.
She said the gangs, thought to be members of the majority Hutu tribe,
had moved on to the parish church to kill terrified members of the
minority Tutsi tribe who had taken sanctuary there.
They are also killing refugees in the town hall,
she said.
Residents in Kigali, where thousands have been killed in five days of
tribal slaughter, reported the city relatively calm overnight on
Sunday. But they awoke to the sound of fighting near the international
airport on the city's outskirts.
Talk of a ceasefire is absolute rubbish, it's complete mayhem here,
said one resident.
One of the RPF's top commanders said the rebels were now determined to
end the government of killers
and appealed to army units not involved
in the ethnic slaughter to desert.
The interim government was announced a few days after the slaying of
President Juvenal Habyarimana, but was immediately rejected by the
rebels.
Habyarimana's death in a rocket attack on a plane returning from a
regional peace conference re-ignited age-old strife between the Hutus
and the minority Tutsi tribe.
Those killed included the prime minister and several cabinet ministers,
all Tutsis, as well as African nuns, priests and aid workers and 10
Belgian U.N. soldiers.
Many victims were buried alive because there were not enough doctors to
check whether they were actually dead. Some were unconscious, others,
their throats cut, were unable to speak.
The army said rampaging troops, from the Hutu tribe, had been called
back to barracks and said it supported the interim government's efforts
to regain control of the situation.
Red Cross workers believe tens of thousands of civilians may have died
in the violence.
Western nations have stepped up efforts to evacuate their citizens.
About 390 French men, women and children left by plane late on Sunday.
An estimated 600 remain in Kigali.
More than 100 French paratroops took up positions at the city's French
school to supervise evacuation operations for terrified expatriates,
most of whom remained in hiding.
About 150 Belgians and other foreign nationals, sheltering in a villa
protected by Belgian U.N. troops, said they were desperate to get out.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
