Title
Dès vendredi [8 avril], 4 000 rebelles ont quitté Mulindi pour se rendre sur Kigali avec une seule idée en tête : venger les leurs, les Tutsi, massacrés par la garde présidentielle et l'armée régulière dominée par les Hutu
Abstract
- The situation in Rwanda continues to worsen. According to the International Red Cross, fighting with heavy weapons is currently taking place on the outskirts of Kigali, the capital.
- A capital that foreigners have fled all day. The first French are expected tonight in Paris.
- We are with the Tutsi rebels in Mulindi, headquarters of the RPF, the Patriotic Front of Rwanda. Here the fighting resumed on Friday [April 8], as soon as the announcement of the first bloodbaths perpetrated by the Hutu in the capital Kigali.
- 4,000 rebels very quickly left this front zone to go to the capital with a single idea in mind: to avenge their own, the Tutsi, massacred by the presidential guard and the regular army dominated by the Hutu. But according to the leader of the RPF, the Hutu are not the only ones responsible for these latest killings. Théogène Rudasingwa: "The United Nations were there. I think they somehow contributed to this situation, to this escalation of violence".
- Today in Kigali, fighting continued with heavy weapons. In working-class neighborhoods, corpses litter the streets. There would already be thousands of deaths. Father Pierre Jault: "Dead people? But I saw plenty of them on the way here this morning! I saw the houses burning, I even heard people screaming, calling for help! There were some near us: girls I knew well. Children have said to me: 'Father, they are sleeping on the road'. Do you see what we say? It does not stop. They are drunk with blood".
- At the airport, the French soldiers organize evacuations. Of the 600 French people identified in Rwanda, 246 had been evacuated at the start of the afternoon. Michel Roussin: "I think that if we can continue at the pace we have been at since last night [April 9], I think that during the day, we will have been able to evacuate the majority of our compatriots".
- All humanitarian organizations except the International Red Cross have left the country. Some of them arrived in Nairobi, very quickly joined by 150 Belgian, American, British and Canadian nationals. All these foreigners share the same feeling: the situation is likely to get worse in Kigali.
- The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set up a contact unit with French families in Rwanda.