Les rebelles tutsi du FPR ont tiré sur des soldats français qui escortaient des civils hors de la zone des combats

Duprat, Florence

Staes, Isabelle

Olliéric, Dorothée

3 juillet 1994

19940703

24:00:00

CEST

Journal de 24 heures

Les rebelles tutsi du FPR ont tiré sur des soldats français qui escortaient des civils hors de la zone des combats

La France a fait savoir à l'ONU sa volonté de mettre en place une zone de sécurité dans le Sud-Ouest du pays.

ScriptFrance2JournalDe24Heures03071994.pdf

25250 bytes

3

France 2

INA

Transcription d'une émission de télévision

FR

- Every day the situation seems to get a little more bogged down in Rwanda. The Tutsi rebels of the FPR, the Patriotic Front, are increasing the pressure: they fired on French soldiers who were escorting civilians out of the combat zone today. No victims on the French side.
- Despite everything, the men of Operation Turquoise redoubled their efforts to save lives: 600 orphans were evacuated from the town of Butare, still in the hands of government forces.
- Six Puma fly over the hills in southern Rwanda. French paratroopers are on the lookout because the FPR rebels have infiltrated there. Direction Butare, the country's second city, threatened by the imminent arrival of the Patriotic Front.
- Emergency operation in the diocese of Butare. In the panic, all the city's religious, seminarians and scouts were evacuated. In total, 300 people. 700 orphans will also be evacuated from a camp, UNAMIR having negotiated a ceasefire until 6 p.m. with the RPF.
- In Butare there is confusion. The population flees. The rebels, who yesterday [July 2] were still three kilometers from the city, continued their push. This time they are there, a few hundred meters from the French soldiers. Colonel Didier Tauzin: "When we left, we were shot at by the FPR. And we returned fire. But there were also groups of the FPR at the side of the road who remained calm. I think, all the same, that when they saw our armament, they must have said to themselves that it was better not to move".
- On the road to Butare the roadblocks are now in the hands of the rebels. The city has fallen, the government troops have fled and the French soldiers are the last to leave.
- France is therefore increasing its initiatives: it has informed the UN of its desire to set up a security zone in the southwest of the country in order to protect civilian populations fleeing the fighting. Alain Juppé explains this initiative: "It is necessary, and this is the proposal that we have made, to create a safe humanitarian zone in the southwest part of the country, more precisely in the districts of Cyangugu, Gikongoro and Kibuye, so as to this zone to ensure that the populations are protected from any threat wherever it comes. And the Franco-Senegalese forces will therefore have this mission. And in the Safe Humanitarian Zone, we will protect the populations from all attacks wherever they come from, whatever side they come from. We have informed the different parties of this and I believe we can say that, thanks to this contact work which is permanent and which will continue, the initial prejudice against the operation has greatly diminished. Everyone saw what the French soldiers and the Senegalese soldiers were doing. What are they doing? Saving populations, saving religious people, saving orphans, saving refugees in camps. Who can oppose such work? This is the reason why little by little support is showing up".
- In Brussels, representatives of the Rwandan Patriotic Front made it known that they were hostile to the French initiative.