Citation
PARIS, April 11 (Reuter) - French soldiers will airlift the last French
residents out of war-torn Rwanda on Monday and will leave as soon as
other Europeans have been successfully evacuated, a cabinet minister
said.
Cooperation Minister Michel Roussin said all but 70 members of the
600-strong French community in the central Arican country had been
taken to safety by Sunday night, most of them in French military
planes.
The remaining 70 were being protected by French troops in Kigali, the
capital, and would be airlifted out in the morning.
Western nations rushed to get their nationals out of Rwanda after an
orgy of tribal violence, unleashed by the killing of Rwandan President
Juvenal Habyarimana last week, killed many thousands of people.
A first group of 43 French citizens evacuated from Kigali arrived at
Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris late on Sunday.
Wrapped in green airline blankets, some said they remained holed up at
home in terror through the fighting until French soldiers arrived and
took them to Kigali airport.
Others said the Westerners' neighbourhoods were spared and they did not
witness any violence. They kept in touch through a radio network set up
by the French embassy after earlier tribal clashes in the city four
years ago.
Some Rwandan personnalities took refuge at the French embassy and
Roussin told France-3 television they would be protected.
Among those flown out were 88 orphaned children, some of whom are in
the process of being adopted by families in France.
Some of them have seen war two or three times. They have seen many
dead,
a priest accompanying them told French radio.
Alain Piron, head of Kigali's French school where French residents
gathered, said the evacuation took place in good conditions and was
suspended at nightfall.
He said only embassy staff would remain behind, but he expected the
many of the French nationals would return. I think this won't take
long,
he said.
About 500 French paratroops were involved in the evacuation, codenamed
Amaryllis
. Belgian paratroops also arrived in Kigali to help to
rescue their 1,500 fellow countrymen, the largest Western group in
Rwanda.
France maintained about 300 soldiers in Rwanda for several years until
they were replaced by U.N. troops last December.
Roussin has said France does not want to intervene in the fighting,
largely along tribal lines, between government troops and rebels of the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
He offered France's assistance to help to restore peace. If men of
goodwill manage to sign a ceasefire and the peace process can resume,
France and the international community will be at both sides' disposal
to help,
he said.
Habyarimana and President Cyprien Ntaryamira of neighbouring Burundi
were killed last Wednesday when a rocket hit their plane as they were
returning from regional peace talks in Tanzania.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
