Citation
NAIROBI, April 15 (Reuter) - The United Nations has reached an
agreement with Rwandan rebels and army units allowing a further 24
hours to evacuate trapped foreigners, the U.N. said on Friday.
Fighting between Rwanda Patriotic Front rebel and government units
still raged in key points of the capital Kigali, UNAMIR, the U.N.
Assistance Mission in Rwanda, said.
This means Belgian and French forces avoid direct combat with either
rebels or government army units on the routes leading to the
international airport in Kigali,
it said in a statement received in
Nairobi. UNAMIR has to inform Rwandan combatants its evacuation
itinerary.
It was not known how many foreigners were still trapped in the maze of
slaughter that has claimed thousands of lives in the overcrowded
central African nation of eight million people.
The RPF had initially given UNAMIR and Western forces up to 2200 GMT on
Thursday to leave Rwanda and said Belgian or other forces would be
considered enemies after the deadline.
UNAMIR wants to relaunch a peace initiative similar to the Arusha
agreement of August 1993 shattered when fighting erupted following the
death last week of President Juvenal Habyarimana, killed in a rocket
attack on his plane.
U.N. special representative Jacques-Roger Booh Booh, who is based in
neighbouring Burundi, said he was holding consultations with the
Security Council to define a new mandate for the U.N. force after the
collapse of a ceasefire it was meant to police under the Arusha
accords.
He said he was concerned about the lives of 12,000 Rwandans sheltering
at a hospital under the care of UNAMIR's special medical units but with
no food, water, or medical facilities.
Booh Booh said 933 other Rwandan civilian were guarded by Bangladeshi
soldiers at Kigali's soccer stadium.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
