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A British woman aid worker spoke last night of her ``astonishment'' at
being alive after becoming trapped at the heart of the fighting in
Kigali, the Rwandan capital, where law and order seems almost
completely to have broken down.
Susanne Niedrum, 28, a civil engineer working for Care, the American
agency, in the central African state, told The Times from Nairobi: ``It
was carnage, a hell, shootings, rapes, killing of anyone by the
presidential guard to try to eliminate those in opposition parties,
their families and their children.''
Last night her mother, Barbel Cheesewright of High Wycombe,
Buckinghamshire, said after hearing that her daughter was safe: ``I'm
overjoyed. She takes care of everyone and I am sure she would have
wanted to help all those trapped.''
Miss Niedrum said fighting began on the streets of Kigali on Wednesday
night after President Habyarimana died when his plane was shot down.
She had been out with a girl friend.
``At first it seemed like the usual night of shooting with grenades
going off in the distance. We went home at about 9.30 pm, but then came
the grenades, guns, and lots of shooting.
``At 5.15 am all hell broke loose. It was the presidental guard coming to
take revenge for the President's plane and they were shooting everyone.
It was carnage. They were killing anyone to try to eliminate those in
opposition parties, their families and their children.
``I live alone with my maid and her children and we tried to hide in my
house. The safest place was in the corner in the hall. We tried to
leave the house, but there were bullets flying. I don't know what they
were firing, but when they hit they made so much noise they must have
been big guns. It was very frightening.
``My house is opposite the American Ambassador's, right in the firing
line. I judged we had to get help to join others, so we ran for it. At
this point the phone went dead. There were hundreds of people fleeing
from the countryside and coming into the ambassador's residence.
``Bullets started coming though the windows and over the roof tops. One
child was hit and died. Others were hit too. It was right between the
government forces and the rebels the front line. The ambassador's staff
were trying to coordinate the evacuation. The Rwandans had to help
themselves. But there was little there. I tried to bandage (the
wounded) the best we could. But I was the only expat there.
``When the convoy was ready I couldn't wait to go. I didn't want to
leave my maid and her family there, they were like my daughters. But we
were told all those on the convoy would be killed if there were any
Rwandans with us. I had to leave them; I know they must be dead. I so
wanted to bring them with me to take them to the country out of Kigali.
They were close friends and her daughters were my daughters. If I stop
to think what must have happened to them and other friends ... it's too
horrible to think.
``We left at 3 pm on Saturday and we travelled for 12 hours to get to
Bujumbura (the capital of Burundi). I was in the last car, carrying an
American flag. A Rwandan soldier was in my car for protection in case
we were ambushed, which we thought might come at any moment.
``We managed to get over the bridge out of Kigali. After we had passed
across it, once the last car had got to safety, they blew it up.''
In Kigali yesterday, gangs of men wielding knives, machetes and clubs
lined roads in the suburbs. Civilians carrying AK47 assault rifles
guarded vehicles crowded with people trying to flee. Dead bodies lay
abandoned everywhere in the streets.
Eric Bertin, co-ordinator for Medecins sans Frontieres in the city,
said that about 50 wounded people treated by the agency were yesterday
reported to have been killed. The International Red Cross told the
agency that the wounded patients had been killed inside tents being
used as hospital wards that were clearly marked with its emblem. ``There
have been around 1,000 deaths at the main hospital in the city. You can
see people dying everywhere outside it, too,'' M Bertin said.
One evacuee, the chef at the luxury Meridien Hotel, said there had been
shelling near the building on Saturday and yesterday by rebels entering
the city. He said this was because soldiers loyal to the former
President had taken up position inside. That position had been overrun,
however, and the hotel reception was now occupied by about 15 Rwandan
rebel soldiers. He also said that about 35 children had gathered in the
hotel and that he had tried to leave behind enough food for them for
the next three days.
Driving through the suburbs from the airport to the school in a convoy
of French troops to collect the evacuees, groups of desperate people
could be seen clustered outside looted houses, many of which appeared
to be abandoned, indicating an enormous displacement of people from the
city to the countryside. The people waved and cheered at the French
paratroops, who also appeared to have a good rapport with government
soldiers. Elsewhere in the city, soldiers carried suitcases, seemingly
containing stolen goods, on their heads.
The atmosphere in Kigali is sinister and menacing. Along the dirt track
that forms the street in the outer suburbs of the city, most houses are
closed behind fences and locked gates. It is also becoming clear that
atrocities have been committed on a grand scale close to the city as
well.
An order of nuns running an orphanage at Masaka, about seven miles east
of the capital, was last night evacuated on a French military aircraft
to the Central African Republic with large numbers of Tutsi and Hutu
women and children, and more than 90 orphans who were in their care.
Sister Palleotrinas, a Polish nun who has lived in Rwanda for the past
18 years, said that anywhere between 30 and 50 people had been
massacred at her orphanage at about midday yesterday. She said they
included a nun whose appearance was that of a Tutsi, but whose identity
card when she showed it to the attackers made it clear she was Hutu.
The orphanage was attacked by a group of Hutu men carrying guns and
machetes. After they killed their victim, Sister Palleotrinas said,
they threw their bodies into an open-pit latrine that contained the
corpses of as many as 200 people massacred in the previous two days.
At night, Belgian soldiers helped carry the orphans across the tarmac
of the international airport to the plane. Many of the Rwandan women
boarding the aircraft had babies strapped to their backs.
More expatriates being evacuated by night said a number of foreigners
had been killed, including two French people who had been hit by mortar
fire.
