Citation
INCIDENT AT ST-ANDRE COLLEGE
FATHER BLANCHARD ORPHANAGE
On the 8 June 1994, I went to the Kigali prefecture to meet
the Sous Prefect who is handling the case of the town orphanages.
We had previously discussed the subject the day before with him
and also the Prefect of Kigali. Our intention was to visit the
different orphanages in order to do an evaluation of their needs,
with particular attention to the medical needs. A representative
of Pharmaciens sans frontière was with us at the time of the
incident.
We left the Prefecture at about 1345 hours to begin our
visit according to the itinerary we had planned the day before.
This called for an initial visit to the Gisimba orphanage in the
Nyamirambo area followed,by the orphanage of Father Blanchard at
the St-Andre College. The sous prefect of Kigali was leading our
convoy through the road blocks of which there were about fifteen
manned by armed civilians. Most of them were carrying automatic
rifles, grenades and machetes. The first visit at the Gisimba
orphanage went very well and we proceeded after a twenty minutes
visit to College St-Andre.
At our arrival the area was deserted and we parked our
vehicles in the small parking area. At first glance the orphanage
appeared deserted. Then Father Otto, a german priest, came to
meet us and brought us inside. Once inside we realize that the
place had many displaced persons and orphans inside to the extent
that it was difficult to move easily. We then met Father
Blanchard who immediatly told us that the lives of everyone in
the location were in danger. We had the opportunity to talk with
him for about five minutes during which time he reported to us
that he did not know the number of people in that location
because a Iot of them had moved in recently in particular,
members of the Carmellte order and of the Josephite order. This
last group had escaped from a massacre the day before which
Father Blanchard said resulted in the deaths of six priests and
about seventy five people: At this time our attention was drawn
by a report from the prefect’s escort, a uniformed guard wearing
a yellow beret.
The information concerned a crowd of about 20 to 30 armed civilians/militia outside the orphanage. Capt Nakoura who was accompanying me on the visit suggested to me that we should investigate. We went outside with the sous prefer, the Milobs team and Father Otto. I told the other members of the group, PSF as well as a Journallst, to accompany us. The PSF team stayed behind for a short while and after leaving the orphanage Father Otto locked the door as is normal practice there.
Capt Nakoura introduced himself to one of the armed civilians followed by the sous prefer and myself. At the same moment we noticed that the remainder of the group were taking up fire positions around us some uslng the bushes as cover. At the same time some of the armed civillans/milltia moved behind us in the direction of the locked door to the orphanage. We were still negotiating with the armed persons asking them the
reason for the hostility. Suddenly we heard shots being fired
to our rear. we turned and saw that about two or three of the
armed persons were firing into the building through the window.
When I looked back-the sous prefet and Capt Nakoura had
moved behind the armed civilians we were talking to behind the
hedgerow such that I couldn’t seetheR inltially. I then asked
where the sous prefer went and was told the location and I moved
to Join the sous prefet and Capt Nakoura.
We met with what appeared to be the person in charge.
We explained to him the purpose of our visit and after several
minutes of trying to get through to him we were told that one of
our group had been injured. We told this person that we were
going back inside to get our wounded man and proceeded to do so.
We got him inside of the vehicle with the assistance of a
Josephite priest, the PSF and Father Blanchard, a total of four
people carrying the wounded man while Capt Narouka continued
negotiating our departure.
Our twovehlclesmovedtothemain
road followed by the sous
prefet’s
vehicle and we hit the first roadblock
which was
adjacent to the parking area which by this time allowed some of
the people to move to the area of the roadblock. The guards on
the roadblock
would not permit us to go through even after
explaining that we had a wotmdedpereon on board. At that moment
a car pulled out on our left and an RGF major that we had not
seen In the area got ou~and told the~ple once roadblock
to
let us pass. The militla argued for about a minute or so until
finally the major opened the roadblock
hilself while still
arguing withthe militla. The remainder of the route to the ICRC
was traversed without incident.
In speaking afterwards with Capt Nakoura
his discussions with the milltla detex-mlned.
followlng:
back
he reported what
He indicated the
a.
When the militia saw me leavlng the orphanage they
noticed that I was Canadian and they were asking if I
was General Dallalre. He explained that I wasn’t but
they then said that I must be one of his gang. There
was an obvious anti Canadian feeling expressed by the
group in the opinion
of Cept Nakoura.
He was so
concerned about this fact that on the return trip he
suggested that a11Canadlans should remove thelr flags
fro~ their uniforms.
bl
They indicated that the hostillty was due to the fact
that they thought we had come to evacuate the people
in the o~a11~
..
c.
He noticed also that t!~OY were in a particularly
hostile
m~odand
~bmeap~edtobeheavilyunderthe
influence of alcohol.
After delivering the woundedlndlvidual tot he ICRC, I went
~o the PTefecture’s
office to report the incident
and
°,. ¯
express my concern about
stll~ at the orphanage.
the~curi~ty-~f~~e"~pTe~that
Were
The prefect indicated that,it is normal that thepopulation
in the areqa is hyped up because it is avery intense combat area
at this time. Although we had set thois up the day before, he
mentioned
that the problem
o~ured because
he had not been
informed of our detailed plan so that he could warn all the
various sub leaders/sector commanders of our coming.
I then asked him if he could do anything to protect
people or evacuate them and he indicated that he couldn’t
that I!NANIR should come up with a Plan.
the
but
Upon return to HQ I spoke with LCol Moiqny and LCol
Rwabalinda and explained to them what happened. I asked LCol
Rwabalinda what he could do. He said that he would try to have
troops that are already in the area protect the building where
the people are located. He also expressed that it would be
difficult because there are a lot of troops involved in the fight
in the area of Nyarimambo. He suggested that if we want to
evacuate them that it would have to be done in one llft. He did
not expect that we would be able to get in touch with the
clvilian authorities which include the prefet of Kigali and other
authorities that may be involved before 0900 hrs tomorrow.
