Abstract
- On the ground the situation is difficult: the fighting continues a few kilometers from the French positions.
- At Goma airport in Zaire, food aid from the Red Cross is being loaded. Rice and lentils that will be transported to refugee camps in Rwanda.
- This aid, the 1,500 soldiers of Operation Turquoise have the mission of escorting it. For this the patrols intervene more and more deeply inside the Rwandan territory.
- Today they reached less than 20 kilometers from the RPF lines. There the paratroopers reported a fairly strong concern among the inhabitants.
- The great unknown, these Hutu militias who arm themselves and train under the eyes of the French soldiers with one objective, to counter the progression of the RPF.
- Because despite Operation Turquoise, the rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front do not let go: in Kigali their fight against government forces intensifies. Mortar shells hit the Church of the Holy Family where thousands of Tutsi are taking refuge. Five of them were killed.
- Today, however, the Rwandan capital experienced one of its rare moments of hope: thanks to a brief lull in the fighting, 45 seriously injured people were evacuated from the city to a sheltered hospital. shells.
- In this news, it should be noted that, according to our colleague Le Monde, the flight recorder of the presidential plane shot down on April 6 in Kigali is in the hands of ex-captain Barril, former commander of the GIGN and currently unofficial adviser to several heads of state in black Africa.
- The French government declares to be unaware this evening of the existence of a possible private investigation into the attack which cost the life of the Rwandan President and which triggered the war.
- On April 6, shortly after 8:30 p.m. As it prepares to land, the Falcon 50 which is bringing the Rwandan President back to Kigali is hit by two rockets and crashes in the very enclosure of the presidential residence close to the airport. The Rwandan President, Juvénal Habyarimana and the President of Burundi who accompanies him are killed in the disaster.
- A mysterious case that rebounds today with the assertions of a man who has already often talked about him: ex-captain Barril, former commander of the GIGN, now unofficial adviser to several African heads of state.
- Paul Barril who claims to hold the black box of the device, the existence of which the authorities had until then always denied. The former officer went to Kigali at the request of the family, now refugees in France, in order to conduct all the investigations he deems useful in order to reveal the truth about the attack. Agathe Habyarimana: "You know, there are investigations that are being done. But I can tell you that the population immediately said that it was the RPF. I can guarantee you that it is not the Rwandan army that fired on the President. Because the Rwandan army had no missiles".
- The revelations made today remind in any case that nearly three months after the attack, no official investigation has yet been opened.