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NAIROBI, Nov 27 (AFP) - The commander of a U.N. observer mission in Rwanda said 37 people were killed in an attack in the north of the country last week, Rwandan radio reported in a broadcast monitored here on Saturday.
General Romeo Dallaire told a press conference in the Rwandan capital on Friday that U.N. forces sent in an inquiry team after it was informed of the killings committed in Kirambo area on November 18.
"The investigation team has just confirmed having witnessed 37 dead and two wounded and that the weapons used by the perpetrators of the atrocities included rifles, pistols and daggers of the commonly used bayonet type," Dallaire said.
He said the team was not able to identify those who carried out the killings because of time and logistical constraints, but would send in another team in a new attempt.
The November 18 massacre is the first major incident since the Rwandan government signed a peace accord with the predominantly Tutsi rebels at Arusha in northern Tanzania last August.
The accord aimed at ending more than two years of bloody fighting between government troops and the rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), who invaded their country from exile in neighbouring Uganda in October 1990.
Dallaire called for "cooperation and goodwill" from the two signatories of the Arusha accord to help restore peace in Rwanda.
He said the U.N. mission, aimed at supervising the ceasefire accord and monitoring the return of refugees, was continuing its accelerated deployment and "intends to put in place a much tighter verification process in the demilitarized zone in the coming days".
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