Citation
KIGALI, April 15 (Reuter) - Belgium stepped up its troop withdrawal
from blood-soaked Rwanda where many thousands of people have been
killed in an orgy of ethnic violence involving the majority Hutu and
minorty Tutsi tribes.
The capital, Kigali, remained a contested area with forces of the
Hutu-dominated government and rebels of the Rwanda Patriotic Front
(RPF) trading heavy fire for a sixth successive day.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it was suspending its
work there after gunmen massacred wounded civilians under its care.
Foreign Minister Willy Claes said Belgium had decided to withdraw its
contingent of United Nations peacekeeping soldiers from the war-torn
central African state.
The Belgian blue helmets will stay under no circumstances,
Claes told
a news conference. No matter what the decision of the (U.N.) Security
Council may be, they will not continue to take part in the U.N.
operation.
He said the U.N. peacekeeping mission, originally intended to implement
a peace agreement signed last year, no longer had a purpose. We do not
believe that the presence of the blue helmets in the current situation
makes any sense,
he said.
A total of 16 Belgians, including 10 soldiers, have been killed in the
violence raging in the former Belgium colony, one of the world's
poorest and smallest countries.
The Canadian commander of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda
(UNAMIR) said it could not yet protect refugees hiding in churches
because it was trying to resupply itself in the chaos and it had to
consider that its mandate was peacekeeping.
I've had vehicles shot up, buses shot up, soldiers killed. We've been
withdrawing and reestablishing ourselves,
Brigadier-General Romeo
Dallaire said.
ICRC officials said they suspended operations to evacuate casualties
after armed civilians at a roadblock in Kigali stopped an ICRC vehicle,
dragged out six wounded civilians and shot them dead in front of ICRC
staff.
In Geneva, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies said at least 30 Rwandan Red Cross workers had been killed in
the fighting and the toll could rise.
The workers were all killed as they helped families, friends and
strangers while the wave of violence swept through the capital,
the
IFRC Red Cross said in a statement.
ICRC workers wept at their headquarters in Kigali on Thursday as they
received phone calls from terrified workers and their families unable
to reach the relative safety of the ICRC compound.
Relief workers said massacres of civilians which began last week after
President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash were still
continuing.
An aid official, who declined to be identified, said: There are
massacres of civilians in the city and in the country. Most of them are
being carried out by militiamen helped by government forces.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
