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KIGALI, Jan 30 (AFP) - Rwandan government troops are hunting down
rebels in the northwest of the country after a major rebel advance and
an attack on a government army base last week, informed sources said
Thursday.
There was heavy fighting Wednesday in the Butaro region localities of
Kindoyi, Rutovu and Musama, all of which the rebels had occupied, the
sources said.
Rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR) last Thursday attacked a
military headquarters in the Butaro region with rocket-launchers,
mortars and automatic weapons.
The rebels attacked other army positions on Sunday, officials said.
Military sources said those who attacked the Butaro headquarters had
been wearing Ugandan Army uniforms.
Since the FPR launched its offensive in October 1990, authorities here
have accused the Kampala government of backing the insurrection.
Many of the rebels are deserters from the Ugandan armed forces. They
come from Rwanda's minority Tutsi clan, tens of thousands of whom have
lived in exile since a Hutu uprising put an end to Tutsi feudal rule in
1959.
More than 800 Tutsi refugees from the fighting in Rwanda have taken
shelter in a temporary United Nations camp at Kirundo in the north of
neighbouring Burundi, an AFP correspondent on the scene there said
Thursday.
Some of them bore wounds which they said were inflicted by Rwandan
government soldiers who accused them of belonging to or supporting the
FPR.
jpc/dn/ma AFP AFP SEQN-0336
