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NAIROBI, Jan 5 (AFP) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Thursday it had registered some 37,000 unaccompanied Rwandan children inside Rwanda and in neighbouring countries.
Tens of thousands of Rwandan children were either orphaned or separated from their parents during ethnic massacres that erupted after Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a suspected rocket attack on his plane in April last year.
Between 500,000 and one million people, mostly members of the minority Tutsi ethnic group, were killed by marauding gangs from the majority Hutu group.
At least two million others fled to neighbouring countries.
The ICRC estimates that there are more than 13,000 unaccompanied Rwandan children aged between two and eight years, in Zaire and some 11,000 others in Rwanda.
Thousands of others are believed to be in Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda.
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AFP AFP
