Citation
KIGALI, April 10 (Reuter) - The rescue of foreigners caught in Rwanda's
tribal mayhem gathered pace on Sunday with eight planeloads of fresh
Belgian troops flying into the capital Kigali.
Shooting and the thump of mortar fire echoed occasionally around the
city's misty hills in spite of a reported ceasefire between rebels and
the army.
Red Cross workers believe that tens of thousands of civilians may have
died since Wednesday, when President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed by
a rocket attack on his plane.
His death launched the age-old strife between the Hutu majority and the
Tutsi minority into a new orgy of slaughter in which the prime minister
and several cabinet ministers, all Tutsis, were murdered, as were nuns,
priests, aid workers and 10 Belgian soldiers serving with the United
Nations.
The firing increased as darkness fell on Sunday, but was less intense
than on previous nights.
Either they have run out of ammunition, or they are getting drunk and
preserving ammunition for the next round,
a foreigner in the city
said.
At Kigali central hospital 500 bodies spilled out of the morgue and
were piled outside, one atop another. Men, women and children with
bullet, axe and machete wounds waited for treatment.
Hutu youths searching for Tutsis checked documents at roadblocks, and
foreigners escaping by road watched helplessly while Rwandan friends
were dragged from their cars -- almost certainly to their deaths.
Rebels of the Rwanda Patriotic Front -- whose Tutsi kinfolk are the
main victims of the Kigali bloodshed -- were reported to have met
strong resistance on a push towards the chaotic capital from their
northern stronghold.
There was no confirmation from the rebels that they would observe a
ceasefire with the army that the commander of a Belgium United Nations
contingent reported at mid-morning.
Belgian officials in Brussels said in the early evening that eight
planeloads of troops and equipments had landed at Kigali airport to
rescue Belgian residents.
The 1,500 Belgians are Rwanda's largest Western community and the group
in greatest danger because of hostility to the former colonial rulers
and rumours among the Hutu that it was Belgians who shot down the
president's plane.
Although France was able to land troops and fly out evacuees on
Saturday and Sunday, Rwandan troops at the airport had barred the
Belgians who began landing after an agreement between Brussels and an
imterim government set up on Saturday.
Many of the country's other foreigners had already escaped. Most
Americans took the road south to Burundi.
U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher told U.S. television: As
far as I know there are no Americans that are unsafe there
.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
