Citation
KIGALI, April 11 (Reuter) - Battles between rebels and government
forces raged in Rwanda's bloodsoaked capital Kigali on Monday and
tribal bloodletting in which thousands have been killed spread to the
countryside.
The rain-drenched central African city reverberated to the thud of
exploding artillery shells and mortars. Heavy machine-gun fire cackled
through dirt streets.
It was the heaviest fighting since Saturday and seemed to be getting
closer to government strongholds.
A French military commander, helping to evacuate several hundred
trapped Westerners said rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)
were on the edge of the capital, 2.5 kms (1-1/2 miles) from the French
School in downtown Kigali, where trapped Westerners were assemblying
for evacuation.
A French convoy came under fire from unknown gunmen as it made its way
from a downtown compound towards Kigali's international airport. French
paratroopers returned fire. No-one on the convoy was injured.
As a fine drizzle settled over the lush, green hills surrounding
Kigali, Belgian paratroopers began escorting several hundred of
terrified Belgian resident to the airport.
In addition to 10 Belgian peacekeepers, six Belgian civilians have been
killed in the violence.
To avoid some of the heaviest fighting on the main approach road to the
airport, the convoys snaked through muddy sidestreets littered with
bodies and echoing to the moans of the dead and wounded.
A woman, both her legs sliced off at the thigh but still alive, cried
out for help. None came in a city where a five-day frenzy of tribal
bloodletting showed no signs of abating.
Gangs of heavily-armed, drunken Hutu tribesmen hunted down and killed
any members of the minority Tutsi tribe they could find.
In Kigali's main hospital, patients watched in horror as soldiers came
in and bayonetted to death two Tutsi men, one injured.
Witnesses said such killings were common. Bodies were piled high in the
hospital -- some barely alive mixed among dozens of mutilated corpses.
Rwanda's history is written in blood, but the latest killing started
after President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundi counterpart were
killed in a rocket attack on their plane last Wednesday.
His fiercely-loyal presidential guard unleashed a campaign of terror
against all Tutsis, suspected of involvement in the murder.
The Tutsi-dominated RPF abandoned a precarious ceasefire and launched
an offensive to rescue 600 of their best fighters pinned down in the
capital where they were located as part of a now-collapsed regional
peace accord.
RPF chairman Alexis Kanyarengwe told Reuters in rebel-held territory:
Our forces are advancing...government soldiers do not have the will to
put up resistance so we shall know in days what the resolution is.
Kanyarengwe, a 57-year-old former interior minister from Habyarimana's
government, said the RPF rejected an interim government set up in
Kigali.
They are just a screen for the killers. We do not accept their
legitimacy,
he said.
U.N. sources said a shell hit a Kigali hospital late on Sunday, killing
27 people and injuring more than 100, in renewed fighting between
Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels and government forces.
Reports said the bloodshed spread to the countryside.
Spanish missionary nuns in the western Rwandan town of Kibuye said the
town's hospital had been attacked and gangs were killing all over the
place
.
They have already killed some of our patients,
she said. We have
just received general absolution, the parish priest came,
one nun told
Spanish radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation in
Nairobi.
She said the gangs, members of the majority Hutu tribe, had moved on to
the parish church to kill terrified members of the minority Tutsi tribe
who had taken sanctuary there.
They are also killing refugees in the town hall,
she said.
Red Cross workers believe tens of thousands of civilians may have died
in the violence. Those killed included the prime minister and several
cabinet ministers, as well as African nuns, priests and aid workers.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
