Sous titre
French and Belgian forces are evacuating expatriates but leaving
members of the Tutsi minority, including local employees of
international organisations, to their fate.
Citation
A few yards from the French troops, a Rwandan woman was being hauled
along the road by a young man with a machete. He pulled at her clothes
as she looked at the foreign soldiers in the desperate, terrified hope
that they could save her from her death.
But none of the troops moved. 'It's not our mandate,' said one,
leaning against his jeep as he watched the condemned woman, the
driving rain splashing at his blue United Nations badge.
The 3,000 foreign troops now in Rwanda are no more than spectators to
the savagery which aid workers say has seen the massacre of 15,000
people - mainly from the traditionally dominant Tutsi minority.
The killing started after President Juvenal Habyarimana and his
Burundian counterpart - both from the majority Hutu tribe - died in a
rocket attack on their plane last week while returning from peace
talks.
His presidential guard and the Hutu-dominated army unleashed a
campaign of terror. Opposing them is the rebel Rwandan Patriotic
Front, dominated by Tutsis.
The Belgian and French troops are here to get foreigners out. So far
they have ferried about 1,000 from an assembly point at the French
school to military aircraft. Rwandans, including staff of
international organisations, are left to their fate.
About 275 Rwandans staying in one hotel have been barred from leaving
on European military aircraft, a Belgian Red Cross employee said
yesterday. 'All of them are Tutsi. They are going to be
assassinated. It's disgusting that they don't take them. We have all
their names and we are going to publish them when we get to Belgium,'
he said, before being evacuated with his Rwandan wife.
Shots from a 120mm mortar rocked the airport throughout yesterday
afternoon, as government troops fired at enclaves of the city secured
by around 600 RPF troops who were in Kigali when the fighting broke
out.
From the countryside, the RPF is sending an estimated 4,500
reinforcements, some of whom are now four miles from Kigali, an RPF
spokesman told the BBC last night.
The splintering of the city between the RPF and different sections of
the armed forces has perpetuated the anarchy. Evacuation convoys
between the school and the French-controlled airport travel via muddy
backroads to avoid the city centre which is controlled by civilian and
military bandits intent on killing and stealing from whoever falls
into their hands.
Less than a mile from the airport yesterday army trucks filled with
foreign evacuees were blocked when they drove into a massacre where
machete- and knife-wielding Rwandans lined the roads smiling as their
victims lay dying.
On the way to pick up the evacuees, the convoy had passed the bodies
of two newly killed men sprawled in the muddy courtyard of a house.
As the convoy returned past the same house less than an hour later,
the body of a woman and two more men lay with the two already dead,
their eyes wide open. The woman had had one of her legs cut off.
On the other side of the road the bodies of three men lay with fresh
wounds. Watching the convoy were the killers - young men, two women
with clubs, old men and children. Close to one body stood a man with a
clipboard in office clothes. Beside him stood a well-armed government
soldier in smart uniform.
At Antoine de Saint-Exupery school, French troops lay on the roof with
guns trained on the deserted road outside as the names of evacuees
were read out in the courtyard below.
From the roof traffic lights could be seen changing from red to amber
to green. A mud road led up a hill less than a mile away. The road was
littered with up to 20 bodies.
Halfway up the hill lay a pile of corpses. From nearby houses women,
old and young, were casually led to the pile and forced to sit down on
it. Men with clubs then beat the dead and dying bodies which
surrounded the women as they sat, screaming, pleading for their
lives.
Suddenly the men turned on the women. They beat them until they no
longer moved, then went to find more people to kill, within view of
the school where the evacuees packed their children, pet dogs, teddy
bears and suitcases into trucks.
