Aid Rushed to Rwanda Refugees
The United Nations began feeding people in a newly discovered camp of 5,000 refugees on the outskirts of Rwanda’s capital Tuesday, and the Red Cross evacuated 39 seriously wounded people to its clinic.
Maj. Jean-Guy Plante, military spokesman for the U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda, said aid workers rushed food to a camp at Ndera, on the rebel-held outskirts of Kigali.
The camp was discovered Monday and “the people were in pretty bad shape, so we launched a quick operation to bring them food,” Plante said.
Millions of people are believed to have been displaced since Rwanda’s civil war erupted following the death of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana in a suspicious plane crash April 6.
A French security consultant Tuesday blamed Habyarimana’s death on Tutsi rebels. Paul Barril, former head of France’s anti-terror squad, told France-2 television that the downing of the plane was a signal for a general offensive by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels.
Meanwhile, 8,000 people remained trapped in the Sainte Famille church complex in the capital, denied food because of low U.N. supplies, Plante said. Many look as if they are starving to death.
Plante said the United Nations hopes to evacuate Tutsis from Sainte Famille today.
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