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NAIROBI, April 11 (AFP) - Twenty-seven Rwandans died and about 100 were wounded when a private hospital run by the United Nations was hit by a shell in the Rwandan capital Kigali, a UN statement issued here said Monday.
The Roi Faycal hospital was hit late Sunday. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda statement did not say who fired the shell, but said that no UN personnel were hurt.
The UN statement did not say which side in the ethnic fighting, pitting the Hutu-dominated government forces against the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front drawn from the Tutsi minority, had fired the shell.
But it condemned the "criminal acts perpetrated by the forces whose obvious aim is to prevent the pursuit of the peace process of Arusha," the Tanzanian town where the Front and government signed a UN-brokered power-sharing accord last August.
The death of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana in a plane crash last Wednesday sparked the latest upsurge in inter-ethnic bloodletting.
The statement noted that the attack on the hospital, run by UN soldiers who were caring for the local population as well as UN troops, was "in violation of international conventions protecting the military and civilians in war time."
It added that the international community and United Nations in particular would seek out those responsible and ensure their prosecution "by the appropriate judicial instances."
The UN statement also indicated that in addition to the 10 Belgian peacekeepers killed last Thursday, five other UN soldiers had been wounded in Kigali, "either by gunfire or explosive devices" in separate incidents. It did not give the nationality of the wounded.
Thousands of Rwandans have been killed by the fighting since Thursday.
sa/ap/gk
