Amid the Horror, Rwanda Cease-Fire Reported
Hutu militiamen abducted up to 40 ethnic Tutsi children Tuesday from a church where they had sought shelter from Rwanda’s civil war, and the United Nations feared they would be massacred. Hours later, rebels announced the warring groups had reached a cease-fire.
Brig. Gen. Henry Anyidoho, deputy commander of the U.N. force, said the children were taken from the Sainte Famille church, where about 3,000 Tutsis are awaiting U.N. evacuation.
“When they take them away, they usually kill them,” Anyidoho said.
Hutu militias have been blamed for most of the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the two-month war between Hutu government fighters and a rebel group made up mostly of minority Tutsis.
But in Tunisia on Tuesday night, there was hope the bloodshed might end when the warring factions reportedly agreed to an immediate cease-fire under pressure from the Organization of African Unity.
If the cease-fire sticks--and there are no guarantees it will--it will allow several thousand U.N. peacekeeping troops to move into Rwanda.
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