Citation
KIGALI, April 14 (Reuter) - The last Belgian forces prepared to quit
the Rwandan capital Kigali on Thursday hours before the expiry of a
rebel ultimatum to all foreign forces to leave a city traumatised by a
week of tribal slaughter.
But the international airport, where Belgian paratroops and a handful
of remaining expatriates were gathering, came under missile attack.
Witnesses said at least six missiles slammed into the airport from
rebel positions on the edges of the city.
Aid workers said it was not clear whether it was still possible to fly
out or whether the only way out of the blood-drenched capital, bracing
for a fresh round of killing, was by land to Bujumbura, capital of
neighbouring Burundi.
It's a general massacre, there are massacres going on all over the
city and the country. The army is massacring, homes are being burned
down, the lot,
said one aid worker.
He said the slum areas of Nyamirambo and Bugasere in the southwest and
southeast of the capital where rebels have infiltrated were out of
control.
Heavy fighting between regular army units and infiltrating rebels of
the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) broke out around dawn for the second
day running.
Belgium, the only western country with forces still in the remote
central African state, wants to comply with an RPF ultimatum which said
foreign troops sent to evacuate their own citizens must be out by
midnight local time (2200 GMT).
A total of 16 Belgians, 10 of them U.N. peacekeepers, have been killed
in the violence raging in their former colony, one of the poorest and
smallest countries in the world.
Overnight on Wednesday Belgian paratroops protecting the French school
evacuation point in central Kigali pulled out. A mob of about 100
looters moved in to grab possessions left by foreigners.
Dawn brought more terror to a city torn apart in seven days of tribal
carnage sparked by last Wednesday's killing of Hutu President Juvenal
Habyarimana. Tens of thousands are believed to have perished since a
rocket attack on his plane in which the president of neighbouring
Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, also died as they returned from regional
peace talks in Tanzania.
Hutu tribesmen, backed by army soldiers and terrified of reprisal
massacres by the Tutsi-dominated RPF, erected more roadblocks across
the rambling city on Thursday.
Many were drunk on banana beer after another night of killing.
As the morning mist cleared over the cool, green hills of the remote
central African capital, soldiers at one checkpoint stood swigging beer
from two-litre bottles. Three badly mutilated corpses lay nearby.
Midway between checkpoints, four more bodies were laid out -- one a
young boy aged about 10, shot through the left eye.
At the compound of the international Red Cross, staff barricaded the
main entrances and windows with bags of European Union rice -- donated
to help hungry refugees devastated by three years of civil war.
Many expatriate staff wept openly, unable to respond to a stream of
telephone calls from some 120 local staff trapped in their houses and
fearing the arrival of the death squads. They said they had heard
several local staff were already dead.
Red Cross officials said too many neighbourhoods were now no-go areas
with terrified local people slaughtering anyone they did not recognise.
In Brussels, Belgian Foreign Minister Willy Claes said on Thursday that
Belgium had also decided to withdraw its contingent of United Nations
peacekeepers from Rwanda.
The Belgian blue helmets will stay under no circumstances,
Claes told
a news conference. No matter what the decision of the (U.N.) Security
Council may be, they will not continue to take part in the (U.N.
operation).
He said the presence of the Blue Helmets had been unable to prevent the
deaths of tens of thousands of people and there was such an
anti-Belgian climate in the country that Belgium could no longer take
the responsibility of endangering its soldiers further.
We do not believe that the presence of the Blue Helmets in the current
situation makes any sense,
he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has urged the Security
Council to decide quickly what to do with the remaining members of a
2,500-strong force originally sent to monitor a shattered peace accord.
Aid workers said they had heard rumours they would soon pull out.
The RPF denied a U.N. report it had agreed to a ceasefire with
representatives of a rump government.
We are not going to negotiate a ceasefire with anyone,
RPF spokesman
Wilson Rutayisire told a Reuter reporter at the rebels' base of Mulindi
north of Kigali.
RPF radio added the rebels would talk only to those who had distanced
themselves from the clique of killers
.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
