Abstract
- Little by little foreigners are fleeing Rwanda and Kigali, far from hell. For example, 205 people including 94 Rwandan orphans arrived in Paris last night. Most of these orphans were being adopted by French families. For those, but for those only, the nightmare is over.
- Wait, that's all they have left to do appears on the screen. They have no news of their relatives or friends in Rwanda and live in worry. For them, each plane arrival represents new hope. That night the passengers on the list are not there: they have given up their places to the children of the orphanage.
- In half an hour, the 94 children were evacuated and to go faster, the French army used the dumpsters. Twice in the past few days men had come to the orphanage and shot dead nine people, molested the headmistress and stole money.
- As soon as they arrived in Paris, they were taken care of by the Red Cross. They received first aid and warm clothes before returning to a foster home in Créteil.
- The decision to evacuate was so quick that the 30 people accompanying the children do not realize what has happened to them. Nor do they know how long they are in France. And for the first time that night, they felt safe.
- Symbol of what is happening today in Kigali, capital of Rwanda: it is the dumpsters that pick up the hundreds of corpses piled up in the streets. Deadly clashes therefore continue between rival ethnic groups.
- French Embassy in Kigali yesterday [April 11]: diplomatic documents are burned as in any urgent situation. This morning the French Ambassador and all the staff left the official building to board a plane.
- Because the situation is likely to degenerate. Here is the face offered by the streets of Kigali: corpses and more corpses killed by bullets or mutilated with machetes. Victims of the fighting but also of the settling of scores simply because they are not part of the same ethnic group. In a devastated and looted city, yellow trucks pick up bodies in indifference.
- Yesterday [April 11] most Westerners were able to flee the country by road or by the airlift set up by the French and Belgian soldiers.
- The rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, with a Tutsi majority, are now at the gates of Kigali: 4,000 men ready to launch an assault on the capital.
- Philippe Boisserie: "The last French people have left Kigali. The French ambassador's plane took off a little over a quarter of an hour ago, with all the staff of the embassy. So there are more French people in Kigali, except perhaps a few who wanted to stay here. Most of the time either religious or French people married to Rwandans. But these are a few people and they wanted to stay here. Otherwise, all the other French people have therefore left Rwandan soil. There are still soldiers now. And a priori in the next 48 hours, they should in turn leave Rwanda. […] Just now the situation was very calm in Kigali. There was an intense fog. Since then, the sun has risen and we hear all around us the firing of cannons, mortars, automatic weapons fire. So the fighting has resumed, like yesterday, like the day before yesterday. And probably like tomorrow for a long time yet. […] We are looking for the s political solutions. There is no longer a French ambassador. I think that the other embassies will certainly close in turn. Yesterday [April 11] the 262 people representing the UN staff here left. There remain the 2,500 soldiers of the UN mission. What will they do ? These are the last forces finally present. Will they stay? But it's hard to see what they could do because so far they haven't managed to avoid the massacre we've already seen".