Citation
PARIS, April 10 (Reuter) - France said it hoped to rescue all its
remaining nationals from war-ravaged Rwanda on Sunday and then would
probably begin flying other endangered westerners to safety.
We think that our 600 countrymen can be totally evacuated during the
day,
Cooperation Minister Michel Roussin told French radio.
As of 1400 GMT on Sunday, 246 of the 600-strong French community in
strife-torn Rwanda had been evacuated, most in airlifts from the
capital Kigali, the Foreign Ministry said.
A first batch of French citizens was expected to arrive in Paris late
on Sunday on a commercial flight after stopping over in either the
Central African Republic capital of Bangui or the Burundi capital of
Bujumbura, it said.
Roussin said the French evacuation mission Amaryllis
, involving
nearly 500 paratroopers and five military transport planes, was
operating smoothly and enabling a quick exodus.
By Sunday afternoon, 174 French nationals had escaped in three military
airlifts, while 62 fled by road and 10 took a United Nations flight to
Burundi, the Foreign Ministry said.
France was spearheading the drive to evacuate westerners.
A first group of Belgian paratroops sent to evacuate Westerners were
flown in to the airport at Kigali on Sunday, Belgian BRTN radio said.
The French forces will probably have a role to play
in evacuating the
1,500 Belgians, 300 Americans and more than 200 other Europeans from
the central African country, Roussin said.
Our operation is working, our capacity enables us to evacuate very
quickly,
Roussin said. The Belgians are in reserve, the Americans are
in Bujumbura and a plane is arriving from Italy.
Roussin, in charge of French policy in Africa, reiterated that French
troops would not intervene in fighting, largely along tribal lines,
between government and rebel troops.
The rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was quoted as saying it was
prepared to attack French paratroopers if they intervened in the ethnic
conflict.
The rebels suspect France, which until recently had several hundred
soldiers in Rwanda, of siding with the Hutu majority. The RPF, with a
force of about 10,000 guerrillas, is predominantly of the minority but
formerly ruling Tutsi tribe.
A French priest was killed in northern Rwanda on Wednesday and two
French government workers were believed to have been killed in Kigali.
A third worker was missing.
France has always been neutral in this matter between the Hutus and
Tutsis,
Roussin said. This is a problem the Rwandans must settle
together.
However, Roussin acknowledged some Rwandans had escaped with French
nationals. There are very strong ties between some French and Rwandan
families,
he said.
About 10 members of the family of late Rwandan president Juvenal
Habyarimana, killed when a rocket hit his plane as it landed in Kigali
last Wednesday, were reported to be on the first French plane to leave
the Rwandan capital on Saturday.
Roussin also said some Rwandan authorities, fearing slaughter, were
holed up in the French embassy in Kigali. We will continue to protect
them,
he said.
France, anxious to avoid jeopardising its perilous evacuation mission,
has repeatedly emphasised it is neutral.
Paris sent several hundred troops to Rwanda after RPF rebels invaded
from Uganda in October 1990. The last French troops were pulled out
last December and replaced by U.N. peacekeepers.
But France kept a small number of military advisers in the country, and
since Saturday French troops have been allied with government forces in
holding Kigali airport.
Philippe Gaillard, head of the International Red Cross in Rwanda, told
French radio he expected all volunteer aid groups to leave Rwanda by
Monday.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
