Citation
UNITED NATIONS, April 7 (Reuter) - The United Nations said Thursday
that three Belgian U.N. infantry soldiers were killed in Rwanda's
capital Kigali which fell into chaos after the killing of the country's
president and prime minister.
U.N. spokesman Joe Sills had said the Belgian soldiers were military
observers but U.N. officials as well as Belgian diplomats later said
they were part of the more than 400 troops Belgium has in the
peacekeeping operation.
A spokesman for Belgium's U.N. mission said the troops were guarding
the prime minister of Rwanda's house before she was killed.
He said Belgium had lost track of 10 soldiers serving with the United
Nations. It is possible that the three bodies who have been sited
might be one of the 10,
he added. But he said Belgium still had to
identify the bodies.
A U.N. spokesman in Kigali said Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe
Uwilingiyimana was killed Thursday near the presidential palace.
U.N. officials in New York said the prime minister left the palace
under U.N. guard. The guard was disarmed and she fled to the compound
of the U.N. Development Programme in Rwanda, which includes civilian
aid volunteers. Armed men then broke into the compound and took her
away.
Her husband and two children as well as prime minister designate,
Faustin Twagiramungu, currently are in U.N. protective custody, the
officials said.
Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, 57, and Burundi President
Cyprien Nytaryamira, 38, were killed late Wednesday when rockets downed
their plane as they came back from a peace conference in Tanzania. Both
were from the majority Hutu tribe long at odds with the Tutsi minority
in both countries.
The United Nations has a peacekeeping force of 2,500 in Rwanda and
about 250 civilians in Burundi in a now-futile effort to maintain a
ceasefire between the Hutu-dominated government and the rebel Rwanda
Patriotic Front.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said the United Nations was attempting to
form a peace committee
of political parties, military officers and
police in an effort to establish some authority in Kigali that can
restore order.
He said there was calm in Burundi at the moment but fears that the
bloodletting in Rwanda would spread there.
Bitter rivalry between the Hutu and Tutsi, former feudal overlords,
predates Rwanda's and Burundi's independence from Belgium in 1962.
Tens of thousands of Tutsi and Hutu have died in ethnic slaughter in
both countries over the years. The death toll in Burundi since renegade
troops killed its first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, on October 21
is up to 50,000.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
